Carnival sunrise. The worse ship ever

[carol louise]

6 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

Sorry you didn't enjoy your cruise. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I believe you mean me?  I did enjoy the cruise actually -- always enjoy cruising! -- but was just commenting on the chaotic embarkation/disembarkation process and the fact that more than once recently the reason given is something about the previous cruise.

[xDisconnections]

2 minutes ago, carol louise said:

I believe you mean me?  I did enjoy the cruise actually -- always enjoy cruising! -- but was just commenting on the chaotic embarkation/disembarkation process and the fact that more than once recently the reason given is something about the previous cruise.

No- my comment was directed towards the OP who dubbed this as the worst ship ever and clearly had negative feedback in his first post.

[jimbo5544]

5 hours ago, carol louise said:

Interesting that the reason they give for delay was basically the previous cruise. I was on the June 10-20 cruise; we showed up at 1 pm as we supposed to for embarkation, and we waited nearly two hours outside before even being able to hand over our large bags and go inside the terminal. It was pouring rain, but thankfully we were under the ramp leading to the parking lots. So we boarded about 3 pm. At the Q&A when asked about the delay in embarkation, the response was that the previous cruise passengers had had an incredible amount of luggage that took longer to unload. Our disembarkation involved sitting for 2 hours in the Lido area after the required time to leave our cabins, before our group was called to disembark, and then we stood another half hour or so in the stairwell and lobby area waiting to get off. I read somewhere that the cruise after us was late boarding. Those passengers were told it had to do with a customs procedure for the disembarking the previous (our) cruise. As it happened, once we were off the gangway, we went through immigration (no customs declaration at all), got bags and exited the pier in about 15 minutes! 

 

My conclusion? The NY pier facilities were not built for ease of getting nearly 4000 people off and new ones on easily, security concerns at the pier restrict the number of people inside the terminals, and Carnival has just not figured out how to manage it. More tactful to just blame the previous cruise!

As I said, I do not know.  I can tell you this, they were doing assisted debark up until 12:20 (most with luggage), which gives credence to my comments.  We were on the Horizon sailing out of New York last summer, clearly with more people than the Sunrise can hold, and did not have an issue.  I cannot argue that the age of the facilities does not play somewhat of a factor, but to put the entire process on it seems over the top.  We are boarding on Monday, e will see what happens when we debark.

Edited July 20, 2019 by jimbo5544

[RRLLAL]

5 hours ago, carol louise said:

Interesting that the reason they give for delay was basically the previous cruise. I was on the June 10-20 cruise; we showed up at 1 pm as we supposed to for embarkation, and we waited nearly two hours outside before even being able to hand over our large bags and go inside the terminal. It was pouring rain, but thankfully we were under the ramp leading to the parking lots. So we boarded about 3 pm. At the Q&A when asked about the delay in embarkation, the response was that the previous cruise passengers had had an incredible amount of luggage that took longer to unload. Our disembarkation involved sitting for 2 hours in the Lido area after the required time to leave our cabins, before our group was called to disembark, and then we stood another half hour or so in the stairwell and lobby area waiting to get off. I read somewhere that the cruise after us was late boarding. Those passengers were told it had to do with a customs procedure for the disembarking the previous (our) cruise. As it happened, once we were off the gangway, we went through immigration (no customs declaration at all), got bags and exited the pier in about 15 minutes! 

 

My conclusion? The NY pier facilities were not built for ease of getting nearly 4000 people off and new ones on easily, security concerns at the pier restrict the number of people inside the terminals, and Carnival has just not figured out how to manage it. More tactful to just blame the previous cruise!

 

They told you the truth. I was on that cruise before you. There was a boat ton of luggage. Not to sound ageist but our cruise was made up with a lot of older people. It was 2 weeks to the Panama Canal while school was in session. A cruise like that is going to attract an older crowd. In fact, there were exactly 1003 people over 70 in our cruise. Older people tend to bring a lot of luggage and with it being 2 weeks everyone had additional luggage. In the morning there was still luggage near the elevators. So yea, it was our cruises fault you were late embarking. 

[xDisconnections]

32 minutes ago, RRLLAL said:

 

They told you the truth. I was on that cruise before you. There was a boat ton of luggage. Not to sound ageist but our cruise was made up with a lot of older people. It was 2 weeks to the Panama Canal while school was in session. A cruise like that is going to attract an older crowd. In fact, there were exactly 1003 people over 70 in our cruise. Older people tend to bring a lot of luggage and with it being 2 weeks everyone had additional luggage. In the morning there was still luggage near the elevators. So yea, it was our cruises fault you were late embarking. 

Sounds like a transatlantic cruise!

[carol louise]

14 hours ago, RRLLAL said:

 

They told you the truth. I was on that cruise before you. There was a boat ton of luggage. Not to sound ageist but our cruise was made up with a lot of older people. It was 2 weeks to the Panama Canal while school was in session. A cruise like that is going to attract an older crowd. In fact, there were exactly 1003 people over 70 in our cruise. Older people tend to bring a lot of luggage and with it being 2 weeks everyone had additional luggage. In the morning there was still luggage near the elevators. So yea, it was our cruises fault you were late embarking. 

Thanks for that information. Sounds like a nightmare for the crew members charged with moving it all off the ship! Makes me still wonder, though, how they didn’t realize, and make adjustments to disembarkation plans, when they saw how much luggage they had when they onboarded it. They had two weeks; maybe a solution would have been to suggest to us by email an embarkation time a half-hour later, assign more crew members to luggage duty, whatever logistically might have lessened that nearly two-hour wait.

 

I read the review yesterday of a more recent cruise on the Sunrise out of NY and it appears the crew may have figured things out. That’s great because I live in NY and would like to see Carnival plan more cruising from here.

 

P.S. I’m over 70 myself, and never travel with more than one checked bag (plus backpack & purse as carry-ons), even on a two-week cruise. To me it’s so worth it to know I can always handle it all myself and not depend on porters. During the waiting times when we had all our luggage on this recent cruise, I saw plenty of younger people with more than I had. Add children in the cabin and it’s even more stuff, so I don’t think an older passenger mix necessarily translates to more luggage. OTOH, maybe it does, like more older men might bring jackets and dress shoes than younger men would, for example. Interesting to speculate.

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by carol louise

[shof515]

20 hours ago, carol louise said:

My conclusion? The NY pier facilities were not built for ease of getting nearly 4000 people off and new ones on easily, security concerns at the pier restrict the number of people inside the terminals, and Carnival has just not figured out how to manage it. More tactful to just blame the previous cruise!

 

The NY pier facilities can handle 4000 people. Norwegian does it weekly on their ship, the Norwegian Escape that has a capacity of about 4200 people or so. I also noticed on my Norwegian cruises out of NY,  Norwegian does a better job of crowd control and crowd management which is something Carnival lacks.

[carol louise]

31 minutes ago, shof515 said:

 

The NY pier facilities can handle 4000 people. Norwegian does it weekly on their ship, the Norwegian Escape that has a capacity of about 4200 people or so. I also noticed on my Norwegian cruises out of NY,  Norwegian does a better job of crowd control and crowd management which is something Carnival lacks.

I did wonder about how Norwegian does it with those very large ships, thinking they must have figured it out by now. Glad to hear it can be done.

[jimbo5544]

1 hour ago, shof515 said:

 

The NY pier facilities can handle 4000 people. Norwegian does it weekly on their ship, the Norwegian Escape that has a capacity of about 4200 people or so. I also noticed on my Norwegian cruises out of NY,  Norwegian does a better job of crowd control and crowd management which is something Carnival lacks.

Would love to hear how NCL does it better also.

[RRLLAL]

1 hour ago, carol louise said:

Thanks for that information. Sounds like a nightmare for the crew members charged with moving it all off the ship! Makes me still wonder, though, how they didn’t realize, and make adjustments to disembarkation plans, when they saw how much luggage they had when they onboarded it. They had two weeks; maybe a solution would have been to suggest to us by email an embarkation time a half-hour later, assign more crew members to luggage duty, whatever logistically might have lessened that nearly two-hour wait.

 

I read the review yesterday of a more recent cruise on the Sunrise out of NY and it appears the crew may have figured things out. That’s great because I live in NY and would like to see Carnival plan more cruising from here.

 

P.S. I’m over 70 myself, and never travel with more than one checked bag (plus backpack & purse as carry-ons), even on a two-week cruise. To me it’s so worth it to know I can always handle it all myself and not depend on porters. During the waiting times when we had all our luggage on this recent cruise, I saw plenty of younger people with more than I had. Add children in the cabin and it’s even more stuff, so I don’t think an older passenger mix necessarily translates to more luggage. OTOH, maybe it does, like more older men might bring jackets and dress shoes than younger men would, for example. Interesting to speculate.

 

 

I’ve gone out of NYC 4-5 times. Never seen luggage in the morning and never been that long getting it off. NYC is usually pretty smooth getting on and off. No doubt it was unique to our cruise due to the combination of an older crowd, being 2 weeks long, and very few kids. I haven’t heard anyone on the other cruises out of nyc, before or after ours, on the sunrise mention a luggage fiasco. 

[Luckiestmanonearth]

I also dislike such Carnival moves that are mainly geared to increasing revenue (like putting in more cabins and not worrying about space in common areas).

 

But at some point you need to put your money where your mouth is and do something about it.

 

For DW and I , even though we are Carnival Platinum, we decided to book Celebrity next March and see how the other half lives

Edited July 21, 2019 by Luckiestmanonearth

[jimbo5544]

10 hours ago, Luckiestmanonearth said:

I also dislike such Carnival moves that are mainly geared to increasing revenue (like putting in more cabins and not worrying about space in common areas).

 

But at some point you need to put your money where your mouth is and do something about it.

 

For DW and I , even though we are Carnival Platinum, we decided to book Celebrity next March and see how the other half lives

which cruise line moves are not geared to driving more revenue?  

[Luckiestmanonearth]

 

7 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

which cruise line moves are not geared to driving more revenue?  

 

You missed my point .  I agree they all do it but only a select few have the “customer comes first” mentality like Celebrity.

 

You can’t possibly keep cramming thousands of passengers into tight common area spaces and have them constantly wait in long lines and expect they’ll keep coming back for more

[shof515]

7 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

which cruise line moves are not geared to driving more revenue?  

 

Carnival is more focus on reducing public space to add in hundreds of new cabins on ships that were never designed to hold additional people. other cruises line is more careful on this approach and only add a few cabins here and there

[KmomChicago]

20 minutes ago, shof515 said:

 

Carnival is more focus on reducing public space to add in hundreds of new cabins on ships that were never designed to hold additional people. other cruises line is more careful on this approach and only add a few cabins here and there

 

There are threads over at the RCI boards stating the same thing with the same concern.  Which are the cruise lines that are more careful?

[KmomChicago]

36 minutes ago, Luckiestmanonearth said:

 

 

You missed my point .  I agree they all do it but only a select few have the “customer comes first” mentality like Celebrity.

 

You can’t possibly keep cramming thousands of passengers into tight common area spaces and have them constantly wait in long lines and expect they’ll keep coming back for more

 

It works for Disney World.  

[Luckiestmanonearth]

24 minutes ago, KmomChicago said:

 

It works for Disney World.  

 

Again I think you’re missing the point .  We’re talking about cruise lines (this site is called “Cruise Critic”)

Edited July 22, 2019 by Luckiestmanonearth

[jimbo5544]

3 hours ago, Luckiestmanonearth said:

 

 

You missed my point .  I agree they all do it but only a select few have the “customer comes first” mentality like Celebrity.

 

You can’t possibly keep cramming thousands of passengers into tight common area spaces and have them constantly wait in long lines and expect they’ll keep coming back for more

Do not kid yourself, they are all stock companies, the ALL do it.  To think otherwise is foolish.  Do not know where your math comes from but they added 112 cabins.  They must be realy stuffing them in.,. 

[jimbo5544]

3 hours ago, shof515 said:

 

Carnival is more focus on reducing public space to add in hundreds of new cabins on ships that were never designed to hold additional people. other cruises line is more careful on this approach and only add a few cabins here and there

I will bite, which space that is used was taken away?  

[shof515]

17 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

I will bite, which space that is used was taken away?  

looking the old deck plans of the triumph the following spaces were taken away to make cabins

Lower level of the theater on deck 3

On deck 5,  the small Venezia Lounge and the bigger Club Rio Aft Lounge was removed and replaced with brand new cabins

The secret deck on deck 9 was removed and replaced with cabins

 

It seems strange that Carnival removed 2 lounges and replaced it a smaller lounge area that is they call the red frog pub. 

[RRLLAL]

11 minutes ago, shof515 said:

looking the old deck plans of the triumph the following spaces were taken away to make cabins

Lower level of the theater on deck 3

On deck 5,  the small Venezia Lounge and the bigger Club Rio Aft Lounge was removed and replaced with brand new cabins

The secret deck on deck 9 was removed and replaced with cabins

 

It seems strange that Carnival removed 2 lounges and replaced it a smaller lounge area that is they call the red frog pub. 

 

The red frog pub is quite large and is the best place on the ship. It’s also the largest red frog pub in the fleet. 

[shof515]

1 minute ago, RRLLAL said:

 

The red frog pub is quite large and is the best place on the ship. It’s also the largest red frog pub in the fleet. 

The way they have the stage setup and only 3-4 regular tables/chairs it just felt smaller to me. Good luck getting to the bar with the large crowd that gather nears the stage when they have events . Red frog pub on other ships had better seating arrangements and seemed to be better designed to handle crowds. 

 

I can not sit in those high bar stool chairs due to health reasons and due to that it ruins my enjoyment of the space when they have events going on

[jimbo5544]

On 7/21/2019 at 9:52 AM, shof515 said:

 

The NY pier facilities can handle 4000 people. Norwegian does it weekly on their ship, the Norwegian Escape that has a capacity of about 4200 people or so. I also noticed on my Norwegian cruises out of NY,  Norwegian does a better job of crowd control and crowd management which is something Carnival lacks.

Just had a flawless embarkation.  By 11:30 they were on Zone 8.  Twenty minutes entry to cabin.  So much for the NY pier not being able to handle embarkation.  

Edited July 22, 2019 by jimbo5544

[Organized Chaos]

6 hours ago, Luckiestmanonearth said:

You missed my point .  I agree they all do it but only a select few have the “customer comes first” mentality like Celebrity.

 

You can’t possibly keep cramming thousands of passengers into tight common area spaces and have them constantly wait in long lines and expect they’ll keep coming back for more

 

2 hours ago, shof515 said:

looking the old deck plans of the triumph the following spaces were taken away to make cabins

Lower level of the theater on deck 3

On deck 5,  the small Venezia Lounge and the bigger Club Rio Aft Lounge was removed and replaced with brand new cabins

The secret deck on deck 9 was removed and replaced with cabins

 

It seems strange that Carnival removed 2 lounges and replaced it a smaller lounge area that is they call the red frog pub. 

 

Some people will never say anything negative about Carnival or acknowledge that certain decisions that they've made might not have been with the customer's best interests in mind. They'll argue against the negatives nonstop, so it does no good to try to lay it out. Personally, I think pointing out the negatives is just as valuable as the positives. If someone is looking at a particular ship, the negatives help build a better picture, which helps make better choices. If everything was sugar coated, a lot of people would end up unpleasantly surprised over certain things and walk away with a bitter taste. Whereas, reading about them ahead of time would lessen the shock, so to speak. Like I said in a previous post, for me, the negative comments about Sunrise in this thread don't disqualify it from my consideration. But the tighter common spaces that result from squeezing in more cabins just might. I fully support for-profit companies making profit, but they also have to think about their customers.

[RRLLAL]

1 minute ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

 

Some people will never say anything negative about Carnival or acknowledge that certain decisions that they've made might not have been with the customer's best interests in mind. They'll argue against the negatives nonstop, so it does no good to try to lay it out. Personally, I think pointing out the negatives is just as valuable as the positives. If someone is looking at a particular ship, the negatives help build a better picture, which helps make better choices. If everything was sugar coated, a lot of people would end up unpleasantly surprised over certain things and walk away with a bitter taste. Whereas, reading about them ahead of time would lessen the shock, so to speak. Like I said in a previous post, for me, the negative comments about Sunrise in this thread don't disqualify it from my consideration. But the tighter common spaces that result from squeezing in more cabins just might. I fully support for-profit companies making profit, but they also have to think about their customers.

 

And it’s greatly overplayed. People act like there’s no common spaces. 14 days, never had a problem finding space anyplace except a couple times at lunch on lido. But that was 5-7 mins. Not a crisis.