Conquest 8/12/17 - The Good, the Meh and the Ugly

[blarko]

The Good:

 

Embarkation was a breeze. Had an 11-11:30 check in time. Arrived to the port around 11:15; there was a line but it moved very quickly. Very organized with the staff sending you to the next available check in person. We were on the ship with drink in hand by 11:45.

 

We had perfect sunny weather the entire five days.

 

Punchliner comedy club - Lester Bibbs was awesome and hilarious.

 

Alchemy Bar - my favorite bar on the ship. Loved the bartenders: Jennifer, Tijana and Dusan.

 

Cheers! package - so much better since including bottled water, specialty coffee, powerade, energy drinks, etc. I never even came close to reaching the 15 drink limit, but I at least broke even every day. My son reached his 15 drink limit three of the days, so it was definitely worth it for him. Would absolutely get the package again on a short cruise, but not on a seven day or longer cruise because by the fourth day (even for my 23 year old son), it's a lot of drinks.

 

Blue Iguana tacos - Yum yum yum. Love those burritos, but the tacos....omg!!!! The best tacos I've ever eaten. I want some right now!!

 

Guys Burgers - How do they do this? We don't have burgers like that in Cleveland. I want a Guys Burgers!!!!!

 

Room service - The BLT and the tuna sandwich were absolutely delicious.

 

 

The Meh:

 

The ship needs some serious attention. Good thing it's going to dry dock.

 

My room steward - wow! I don't even know what to say about this. I was never asked if I wanted once or twice a day service. I only received once a day and there was no rhyme or reason to whether it was morning or evening service. One day we didn't even get any service. I ended up going to the towel cart to get towels for our showers because we were out. Definitely not the room steward service I'm used to from Carnival.

 

The Lido buffet seemed to have the same food (at least for dinner) every day that we went. We only went to the MDR twice because there wasn't anything on the menu that looked good to us. My first ever cruise that I didn't have chocolate melting cake 😢

 

Free drink coupon - this has got to be the dumbest "gift" they could possibly give. I didn't use mine because I had Cheers! Also I forgot I had it.

 

There were a LOT of kids on this cruise. That's not a complaint, just a statement. The pools were pretty crowded and these kids in particular loved to splash, hard.

 

Peter, the Cruise Director - don't know what it was about him, but, just my opinion, he didn't seem to me like he was enjoying himself. Wasn't really visible around the ship so much and I didn't really see him interacting with passengers. I don't want to say too much about him as it didn't have any bearing on my cruise experience, but he's not one of the stand out CD's, in my mind.

 

 

The Ugly:

 

I debated whether or not to write about this, but decided to go ahead and do it. So this is about a Carnival excursion, but I do not blame Carnival for what happened. I had prepurchased the Atlantis Dolphin shallow water interaction (Carmival excursion) about a month prior to cruising. The excursion tickets were delivered the night before and we were to meet in the main lounge at 9:00. We arrived to the lounge by 8:50, and found our section to sit and wait. The lounge is set up so you sit in groups according to the excursion you are going on. The Atlantis people are there passing out wristbands for the excursions. My particular excursion had four rows, there were 19 people. When the Atlantis rep got to our section, she wanted to know when each of us purchased our excursion tickets, because she didn't have enough wristbands for everyone. She called her "manager" (via a walkie talkie type thing), I could clearly hear the entire conversation. The manager told her to go ahead and send everyone to Atlantis and we would get our wristbands when we get there (I heard her say this). So off we all went to the shuttles over to Atlantis. Those of us without wristbands were taken (very long HOT walk) to the "manager" who informed us that "the ship oversold the dolphins and we don't have room for you". "We only have so many slots and the ship didn't tell us how many people signed up so we opened it up to hotel guests". WHAT!!!!!!!! No matter what anyone said, they were not letting us do the dolphin excursion we had purchased. We begged and pleaded with Mr. Manager to give us what we paid for but he would not budge. Instead he said we could choose any of the other Atlantis excursions that didn't include dolphins. There were five of us that were simply not interested in another Atlantis excursion. If I wanted to do another Atlantis excursion, I would have booked it from the start. I can't speak for anyone else from our group, but for me, I have no interest in a water park or water slides. I have water parks where I live. I do not have dolphin encounters. This was a bait and switch tactic by Atlantis. Instead of just saying the encounters were full while we were still on the ship, allowing us to possibly choose another excursion altogether, was ensuring they still made the money from those of us who were not allowed to do the dolphin encounter. Next thing you know, he's putting wristbands on everyone for the "aquaventure". Ummmm, what don't you understand.......I don't want to do the waterpark. Well the first shuttle back to the ship isn't until 1 pm (it's not even 10:00 at this point). OMG!!! Are you kidding me! At this point, Mr. Atlantis was done talking to us, and we had a choice to stand there for three hours staring at him or go walk around Atlantis. We walked around the aquarium and the casino, looked at the beautiful grounds of the property and basically tried to kill three hours until we could return to the ship. We caught the shuttle at 1:00 and went back to the ship. I went straight to guest services to inform them of what happened. The very nice guest services girl had no knowledge of what had happened and basically told me there wasn't anything she could do to help. She suggested talking to Shore Excursions but they wouldn't be open until 5 pm. Fast forward to 5 pm......I go to Shore Excursions and the young man who was working there already had knowledge of what had happened. He tried to tell me that I was offered another excursion while I was at Atlantis and basically too bad. I was gentle but firm with him that I didn't get what I paid for and wanted to know how we were going to fix this. He said to give him a minute, he stepped in the back, then came out and said he would refund the money I paid for the excursion. In my mind, of course, I shod get a refund, but at the same time, I would have much rather enjoyed the dolphin interaction.

 

One more Ugly - while standing in line a guest services the last night of the cruise, I heard several people removing their gratuities. Their complaints were so trivial. This is heartbreaking to me. Those workers on the ship work so hard and to remove all gratuities because the waiter forgot to bring you an extra fork is awful. Carnival shouldn't make it so easy to remove gratuities.

 

So that's the Ugly part. Did it ruin my cruise? Absolutely not. I wish Atlantis would've been up front, while we were still on the ship, that they couldn't accommodate us. We could've possibly booked another excursion right then (not an Atlantis one) rather than waste our day in Nassau.

 

In summary, I enjoyed the cruise, had an amazing time and I can't wait until I can go on another one!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[BNBR]

That's terrible! Other dolphin excursions in Nassau, too. If they were better organized, you may have had the opportunity to visit a different one. I probably would have done a different activity at Atlantis and still got a full refund in this circumstance.

[MastersLevelMama]

Great review! I appreciate the honesty. Boo on Atlantis for the way that was handled.

[cruise_everywhere]

We love Alchemy as well! Always a great time making new friends throughout the cruise.

 

I would say I'm surprised about Atlantis but for some reason I'm not - I've been there and have loved it but they didn't something similar our last time when it was a downpour the entire day, some got refunds before leaving the ship but some where told "I'm sure it'll clear up"... it never did so some where out of luck.

[easyboy]

Very objective feedback! Glad the mishandling by Atlantis didn't entirely ruin your cruise experience.

 

 

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[OceansOfTravels]

I'm sorry about the situation that happened at Atlantis, it definitely sounds like a drag on the whole experience. I was on the Conquest in December, and I definitely enjoyed the ship a lot. I kind of said that if Conquest didn't wow me, I would be back on Carnival after a couple trips with other lines (I already had my Divina cruise booked when I booked the Conquest one) but Conquest definitely wow-ed me and reminded me why I do like Carnival Cruise Lines. Glad that you still had an amazing trip, I can't wait to see what she looks like after the drydock! The Serenity addition will definitely be a plus! :D

[sanmarcosman]

We won't be spending any money with Atlantis next year. Thank you for the report.

[riclop]

That describes Carnival perfectly.

[blarko]

We won't be spending any money with Atlantis next year. Thank you for the report.

Same. This was my second visit to Atlantis and definitely my last.

 

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[LMaxwell]

My room steward - wow! I don't even know what to say about this. I was never asked if I wanted once or twice a day service. I only received once a day and there was no rhyme or reason to whether it was morning or evening service. One day we didn't even get any service. I ended up going to the towel cart to get towels for our showers because we were out. Definitely not the room steward service I'm used to from Carnival.

 

When you were at guest services did you address this with them and what did they say? That lack of service is a big "no go" for me.

[blarko]

When you were at guest services did you address this with them and what did they say? That lack of service is a big "no go" for me.

I did not address this with guest services. Honestly that thought never even entered my mind. I suppose if it really bothered me, that would've been the thing to do.

 

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[cruisequeen4ever]

I'm so glad you got your excursion refunded! I'd be sooooo mad! They obviously shouldn't have overbooked, but in the case that they did, they should have asked for volunteers like Airlines do, not punish you!

 

 

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[fsa1155]

Thank you for posting your review. We are booked on the Conquest for next September. It will be our first trip on this ship. So sorry you had a bad experience with an excursion but glad it didn't have a lasting effect on your cruise.

 

I also think some cruisers are too hard on the crew. They do work extremely hard. I have never had a bad server or cabin steward. We always do the "prepaid" tips and then take some extra cash to give out for going above and beyond the call of duty. I always wonder if the cruise line will take a portion of the "prepaid" tips so I like to give a little extra.

[spiritkat090909]

You may have already done so, but be sure to review the Atlantis dolphin excursion on the carnival website so it gets the ratings it deserves.

 

(On a more positive note...if anyone is a Total Rewards diamond member, you don't have to pay resort fees at Atlantis if going there for a day pass.)

[Cafedumonde]

We saw people taking off gratuities on our last night at guest services at the vista. The line was long and half the people in front of me were doing just that. Very sad. It was obvious they were just trying to skip out on paying. Their "complaints" were ridiculous. I have not seen this on another cruise line. And we always go to guest services the last night to settle our cash account.

[blarko]

You may have already done so, but be sure to review the Atlantis dolphin excursion on the carnival website so it gets the ratings it deserves.

 

(On a more positive note...if anyone is a Total Rewards diamond member, you don't have to pay resort fees at Atlantis if going there for a day pass.)

Great advice!! I didn't think to do that, but wonder if ill be able to review the excursion since I never actually got to do it. I shall find out!

 

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[Fern Crest]

Thanks for your review. We went on as you got off, and we loved the Conquest!

 

Sorry about the Atlantis dolphin excursion, sounds like it finally got handled. Glad you stuck to your guns until you got the refund.

Pete, the CD, was the worst one we've encountered. He talked way too fast, tripping over his words all the time, so you were never sure of what he'd said, which was an issue during muster and the fire drill they had one day. He didn't mingle at all, and generally seemed too busy to actually talk to anyone. He didn't ruin the cruise by any stretch, but this was the first one where the CD didn't add to our great experience. The "BYE-EE" on the announcements all the time got old really fast.