Just off the Magic

[TheGirlNextDoor]

I'm appalled that a 4 year old and 7 year old were expected to stay in a cabin alone!!! I just got off Magic and we had connecting cabins. DH, our 4 year old, and myself slept in one while our 16 year old, 12 year old, and 9 year old slept in the other. Door was always open. I can not imagine leaving a 4 year old baby in a cabin ALONE with another young child. How did these parents NOT get in trouble? How can that be legal? You can't even leave a child those ages in a car in parking lot for a minuteu in Texas. I'd probably kick their arse over that.... Grrrr.

 

We just got off Magic yesterday. We had early seating in Southern lights and were seated aft too. Fortunately, our waiters went over and beyond. I can't complain at all.

 

The spa manager flat out LIED to my face one day. She was booking a couple's massage for me and DH for that day. As she was booking the time of 4pm, I realized that the past guest party was at 4:30 so I asked if I could have it scheduled for the next day which was the last sea day. She told me they were completely booked the next day and that that time was the ONLY available time. I took it. I went up to the check in desk by the thermal suites. I asked the lady there who told me she had several openings for the next day. Really? The spa manager just told me NONE were available!

[dforeigner]

What a bummer. Thanks for taking time to write a review.

[oncruisecontrol]

Therein lies the problem when you have a food allergy - you can't make changes on the cruise.

 

Since the hostess screwed up every order we had to make do with what came and trade among ourselves since we knew it was impossible to order something made GF at the last minute. For example -for the last night I ordered Mahi Mahi for DH and chicken breast for me. We both were served Prime Rib. DH traded with our son who actually ordered the Flat Iron but got the fish. I ended up just eating the baked potato since no one would trade with me.

We played musical meals the entire cruise and sometimes someone didn't get a chair. That matters when you are GF because you just can't run out and get a GF snack on a cruise ship.

Did you complain about these grievous errors? In a kitchen of that size and equipped as it is, how is it that they did not have grilled chicken breast readily available? Also, while a gluten-free diet may be limiting, it seems to me that it should have been possible to order a few things GF on the spot: such as a salad with oil and vinegar, steamed vegetables, steamed rice, fresh fruit. Were these items not available? I work as a server in a restaurant that accommodates many special diets FYI.

[prattmom]

Yep. Never had to open our door, either, in our cabin. Never heard the announcements so loud! DH was trying to take a nap a couple of days and it bothered him as well.

 

 

Meredith

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Glad he will be off the ship when we sail. We were on the Strand Sunday and could hear him on the PA system! O.o

 

 

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[missabbi]

The only bad thing about our recent Pride cruise was the extremely loud and l-o-n-g announcements by the CD....whoever he was. :rolleyes:

 

I have sailed on Carnival, Royal, NCL and Holland. NCL and Holland were my least favorite.

[MsMot]

Let me preface this by saying it was my 32nd Carnival cruise and 50th cruise on any line.

 

Embarkation: Swift and easy as usual thanks to Mickie and Troy in the Priority Lounge. We were on this ship in mere minutes. We arrived around 11am after parking at EZ Cruise. Our spa balcony cabin was ready.

 

Cabin: This was our 3rd trip on the Magic in a Spa Balcony. However, we hated being down on deck 11. Cabin was the same, but the location was not as good for spa and serenity access.

Cabin steward Benny was good. The balcony partition was already opened when we arrived as we had requested via John Heald. Unfortunately, we had horrible neighbors across the hall. The parents put their kids in one cabin and stayed next door. The kids were only about 4 and 7. The 4 year old would be out in the hall banging on his parents door and crying for his Mother, but she refused to answer the door. It went on and on and woke up our grandkids. We finally got housekeeping involved. They too were concerned that something was wrong with the mother. The door was double locked so they knew someone was in there. The father finally answered the door for Housekeeping and screamed at the 4 year old that he told him to stay in his cabin. He literally dragged the kid back in his cabin and screamed at him, which made him cry louder. DH told the father he would call security the next time the parents left the 4 year old wailing in the hall. We also had lots of problems late night with teenage girls sitting in front of our door talking and laughing very late at night and with kids running up and down the halls banging on the doors.

 

MDR: We had early dining in Southern Lights back by the aft windows. All 6 of us are Gluten free. The hostess assigned to us was not overly friendly or even pleasant. She also messed up every single dinner order. We never got what we actually ordered. There were always missing appetizers and wrong main courses.

Our waiter had way too many tables and was run ragged. His two assistants didn't help and we rarely got refills on our water and only were offered coffee 3 nights. It took anywhere from and hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 50 minutes until our entrees came. Everyone else in the area was on dessert before we got our main courses. The worst was the night when we got our main course at 10 minutes to 8 and had to gobble our food and get out before late seating started. It was hard on the 6 and 8 year old having to sit at the table for 2 hours for every dinner with an hour between the appetizer and the main course. We always arrived on time and our GF meals had been pre-ordered so they should have been ready.

 

They also failed to deliver the birthday cake I ordered for my DH on the day it was requested. Everybody blamed somebody else. Cherry on the Top said the order was placed with the kitchen. The chef said he made the cake and it was delivered to the MDR. They all seemed to blame the waiter. Guest Services arranged for the stale cake to be delivered another day and ended up removing the charge for it. When we went into Cherry on Top Cecelia, who placed the order, did apologize to my husband and wished him a Happy Birthday. She blamed the waiter. Ours was the only cake order on the entire ship for Thursday and they screwed that up.

 

The hostess did order GF pancakes for the kids every morning. They liked them. I always order Fresh eggs since I am GF, and a couple times the waiters tried to pass off the other eggs as fresh, but I sent them back.

 

 

Entertainment: We've seen the shows twice before and noticed they cut some songs from Groove Line. We only managed to get into an adult comedy show once. Every other time we spent a long time in line only to get to the door to be told the show was full. They need to just put them back in the main showroom.

 

Camp Carnival: The kids had a good time at Camp Carnival. They went to the morning session most days and then spent the afternoon out at the Waterworks. Our 8 year old grandson loved the ropes course. We used night Owls once and the kids had a blast.

 

Diamond Status : A total joke. I did not receive any of my Diamond benefits (didn't even get the Platinum benefits). I spent time every day at Guest Services trying to get it straightened out. The last day at 4pm the Guest Services Manager called to ask how my Diamond experience was. I told him in no uncertain terms that it was a total fail - no Diamond event invite, no past passenger party invite, no drink coupon, no hat NO NOTHING. He was not informed that either my DH or I had been there at least once a day trying to get it fixed. He asked what he could do to make it up to us. It was a bit late as the suitcases were packed. He called back 15 minutes later and said the Captain was willing to meet me for a drink. I declined. We were babysitting for the grandson who was napping. Guest Services did send a bottle of wine to dinner the last night via the hostess to apologize. They kept apologizing and promising to fix things all week, but they were mostly empty promises. Everybody at Guest Services kept blaming someone else and said the Cruise Coordinator would fix it. He or she never did. This is not the first time this has happened to us on the Magic. In Jan 2012 we did not get any of our Platinum benefits and got the runaround for the week. We've been Platinum since the inception of the Program.

 

Shore Excursions: We pre-booked the Beach and Lunch tour for Belize. When we got back to the cabin after dinner the night before Belize there was a note saying the excursion was cancelled. Unfortunately by the time we found out it was cancelled there were no excursions available for 6 people that a 6 year old could do. DS an DIL went snorkeling. DH and I stayed on the ship.

In Roatan we hired a private driver through Victor Bodden. We had a great day. Roland, our driver was very nice. We went to the Iguana Farm, Monkey Farm, had a seafood lunch at Gios and then ended up at Bananarama. It was the best day of the cruise and probably the best meal of the entire week.

In Cozumel we went to Mr. Sanchos as usual. We pre-booked the AI plan and also bought the kids entrance to the water toys. They spent the day either climbing the icebergs or digging in the sand. DS and DIL used the snorkel equipment that was included. Everyone had a great day at the beach. We were just sorry that the ship docked at Punta Langosta. It cost us an extra $30.00 to get to the beach and back since we were docked downtown. No explanation was given as to why we did not dock at Puerta Maya as originally scheduled.

 

Debarkation: We put our luggage out the night before and had #1 luggage tags. DS had FTTF. All Platinums, Diamonds and FTTF were told to wait in Northern Lights. We were told to be there by 8am. They took us off pretty quickly. So much for Plat/Diamonds going first - they embarked and disembarked at the same time as FTTF. The lines in Customs and Immigration were long and the officer we had moved at a snails pace. We were in line about 30 minutes before we were cleared. We had a porter and he took all our bags to EZ Cruise and they had a van right there ready to load. After the quick trip to the parking lot we were glad to be on our way home.

 

Our 6 year old Grandson summed up our cruise. "I'm done with this place." We were considering the 8 night to Aruba and Curacao on the Freedom, but have decided to end our cruising relationship with Carnival. Guess we'll learn to be Loyal to Royal (1 cruise from Diamond on RCI) or get back to taking land based vacations instead of cruising.

 

If I were you, I would find a way to get your complaints voiced to the new CEO. John Heald did a Q&A with him, which is posted on JH's blog and I think he wants and needs to hear complaints like this from long time passengers.

 

FYI, we did the the Freedom itinerary and everyone in our large group agreed that it was our best cruise. The itinerary is awesome, the ship is great and about to get 2.0 upgrades and the staff were top notch. It is unfortunate that your experience on the Magic left a bad taste in your mouth, but I think it is important that you be heard.

[MrBanana1240]

Carnival is seriously starting to lack.

 

Thinking to take another Royal. Sorry about your bad experience.

[Golfing Dan]

I believe a lot of this has to do with timing of the cruise. I have sworn that I will not cruise Carnival if normal school is out of session. This seems to work. It seriously limits the great many of the problems the OP listed. We are traveling on this ship on September 22nd and the Triumph on Oct 31. Hopefully things are better.

[halos]

If I were you, I would find a way to get your complaints voiced to the new CEO. John Heald did a Q&A with him, which is posted on JH's blog and I think he wants and needs to hear complaints like this from long time passengers.

 

FYI, we did the the Freedom itinerary and everyone in our large group agreed that it was our best cruise. The itinerary is awesome, the ship is great and about to get 2.0 upgrades and the staff were top notch. It is unfortunate that your experience on the Magic left a bad taste in your mouth, but I think it is important that you be heard.

 

While I TOTALLY agree with being heard, the LAST place I woudl voice complaints is on JH's blog or facebok.

You think people get flamed here??....

:eek:

I do not think JH wants negative stuff at all...unless something has changed recently. He allows people who have any complaints to be mocked by his followers.

CCL's web site has contact info for corporate offices in Miami. That is where I would send my comments.

It is best to be well spoken (written) and calm when doing so....as the OP's original post was here. I don't know if she'll get a response or not CCL used to be great with responses, but I can't speak to that anymore because it's been a long time since I've written them. I used to write after every cruise with glowing praise. That stopped sometime after 2008.

[Georgiagolfer]

While I TOTALLY agree with being heard, the LAST place I woudl voice complaints is on JH's blog or facebok.

You think people get flamed here??....

:eek:

I do not think JH wants negative stuff at all...unless something has changed recently. He allows people who have any complaints to be mocked by his followers.

CCL's web site has contact info for corporate offices in Miami. That is where I would send my comments.

It is best to be well spoken (written) and calm when doing so....as the OP's original post was here. I don't know if she'll get a response or not CCL used to be great with responses, but I can't speak to that anymore because it's been a long time since I've written them. I used to write after every cruise with glowing praise. That stopped sometime after 2008.

 

Totally agree with this. If per chance, you happen to post anything negative about our "beloved" CCL on CC, then it takes no time for the loyal police to respond with attacks.

 

Come on, lets face it, CCL just like other cruise lines is a service industry. They all have issues periodically, and none are perfect. I just don't get it with some people who defend, no matter the issue, their favorite, and seemingly want to accuse a poster of making things up.

[sailor_jimc]

You can't blame John for the attacking that I agree happens on his FB site. He simply does not have the time to sit around all day and police the site. I am amazed he has the time to the write a blog AND answer FB posts. But, even if he had the time, I am not sure he would be a good moderator. He takes "the customer is always right" approach to a fault and would never tell someone they can't say something even if it was negative...

[Georgiagolfer]

You can't blame John for the attacking that I agree happens on his FB site. He simply does not have the time to sit around all day and police the site. I am amazed he has the time to the write a blog AND answer FB posts. But, even if he had the time, I am not sure he would be a good moderator. He takes "the customer is always right" approach to a fault and would never tell someone they can't say something even if it was negative...

 

Oh, I don't blame JH for the attacks by posters on his blog. I blame the posters for being blind and not accepting things that can and do go wrong on CCL. But as I said, things do happen, but they happen on all lines, not just CCL.:D

[MsMot]

While I TOTALLY agree with being heard, the LAST place I woudl voice complaints is on JH's blog or facebok.

You think people get flamed here??....

:eek:

I do not think JH wants negative stuff at all...unless something has changed recently. He allows people who have any complaints to be mocked by his followers.

CCL's web site has contact info for corporate offices in Miami. That is where I would send my comments.

It is best to be well spoken (written) and calm when doing so....as the OP's original post was here. I don't know if she'll get a response or not CCL used to be great with responses, but I can't speak to that anymore because it's been a long time since I've written them. I used to write after every cruise with glowing praise. That stopped sometime after 2008.

 

 

Where does my text suggest posting a complaint on JH's blog or facebook?:confused: My suggestion was to find a way to get the complaint to the new CEO. I simply mentioned that JH did a Q&A with the new guy. Clearly everyone knows that a blog or facebook is not the proper avenue to voice a valid complaint and the OP has several valid complaints.

[halos]

Where does my text suggest posting a complaint on JH's blog or facebook?:confused: My suggestion was to find a way to get the complaint to the new CEO. I simply mentioned that JH did a Q&A with the new guy. Clearly everyone knows that a blog or facebook is not the proper avenue to voice a valid complaint and the OP has several valid complaints.

 

My sincere apologies for misunderstanding your post. :o

Now that I have reread it, I see what you were saying.