Abandon Ship!!!!
Written: Mar 23 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Ports of Call, Friendly Service Staff, Comfortable Beds & Dining Room Food!
Cons: Entertainment, Staterooms, Buffet Food & Administration Crew!
The Bottom Line: There is nothing about this ship or cruise line that would make me do a return trip. It was just that BAD!
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| rjski's Full Review: Carnival Destiny |
I know this review is long, but PLEASE read this if you are considering a cruise with ANY Carnival line. My husband and I went on the Carnival Destiny out of San Juan on 3/12/06 with a group of 25. This was our first Carnival experience and it ended up being the worst experience of my life! Our ports of call were St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados and Aruba. All of the ports of call were very nice and they were the best part of the cruise. My complaints are strictly about the "Destiny" and Carnival so I will talk about that.
Embarkation in San Juan went really well. We sailed through immigration and boarded the ship within 30 minutes. Upon entering the lobby of the Destiny, my first impression was a positive one. However, that quickly changed. When we got to our stateroom on the Veranda Deck #8, I immediately contacted our steward regarding the temperature of the room. It was about 80 degrees inside. We were in an inside stateroom, so there were no windows and therefor no where to obtain any kind of breeze or fresh air! The steward told us to contact the help desk and I was told 3 times that night that someone would come fix it, but no one ever showed up. Our steward, Hong, then assured us the temperature would be better once we set sail. It did turn out that the room was cooler while we were at sea, which thankfully was while we were sleeping. The only time the temperature was comfortable enough to be in the room was between 10pm and 9am. During the day, it was unbearable!!!
On a positive note though, the bed was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in!!!!
The dining room had about 8 entrees to select from which didn't seem like alot, however all of our dining room meals were of exceptional quality and taste. I am a very finicky eater and one night I did not like any of the entrees that were on the menu and so our waiter offered me filet mignon instead. I was happy with that! Our waiting staff, Melvin and Daniel were excellent. We never had to wait long for our food.
The buffet's were absolutely horrible! Royal Caribbean's buffets blow these ones away! The selections were scarce and the quality and taste were just no good! I advise eating in the dining room as much as possible, even for breakfast! The pizza station was the only food place open for 24 hrs and it was good. There was a grille that served hamburgers, hotdogs, cheesesteaks and such but it had really bad hours. It was only open for lunch which meant you couldn't get a burger for dinner or late night snack if you wanted to.
The entertainment or lack there of, was just bad! The shows in the Pallidium lounge contained dancers and singers with no talent what-so-ever! Especially the lead lady singer, Trish. She makes the American Idol rejects sound really good! The comedians were the only real good entertaining shows to watch. Both comedy shows were great!
Other entertainment around the ship was scarce. The piano bar was just "ok" and the bands that played in the Criterian Lounge were not that great. We went to karaoke two nights because I really enjoy that, but we ended up leaving both times because the host of the show, Nicole, was rude and obnoxious! The one great entertainer on board was Patrick who sang and played the guitar in the Destiny Lounge. He played about 4 nights of the cruise and our group sat there and had a blast with him all 4 nights! As far as the day time activities go, they seemed to be geared toward the younger crowd, like 16-25. There was not much for us 30something's to do!
Up until Saturday the 18th, my group and I were making the best of our vacation even though we were extremely disappointed with the ship and what it had to offer. But that day is when the nightmare actually began. We learned on Saturday afternoon that one of the passengers had fallen and had to have immediate surgery and so over night we had turned around while at sea and went back to Aruba (our last port of call). While doing that, one of the ships propellers hit a reef and broke. That meant that our ships cruising speed decreased significantly and it put us behind schedule to dock in San Juan by 9 hrs. We were told continuously over the course of the day that everything would be taken care of if we were to miss our flight out of San Juan. Our flight was to leave at 1:45 pm on Sunday, so we knew we were definitely going to miss it. On Sunday morning, 3/19 we were told we would dock in San Juan at 3pm. The cruise director, Skip, assured us again that flight information would be given to us in our rooms by 1pm. That did not happen. At least half of the passengers did not have flight info by the time we were told to vacate our staterooms at 4pm. At 4pm, all passengers had to take their carry-on luggage (all other luggage was picked up at the room) and sit either on deck 5 or 9 and wait to be called for their hotel info. We sat on deck 5, on the floor because there was not enough chairs, until 9pm!!! At 9pm, I had had enough and took some of my group with me to the Pallidium Lounge where they were handing out hotel assignments. At 12:00am, all of our group had finally gotten hotel assignments and we disembarked the ship. As we walked out of the port terminal, approx 2000 people were standing in line waiting to board the ship. They had been waiting there since 2pm!!!
My group was separated and spread over SanJuan in 5 different hotels. At 8am on Monday 3/20, we all went down to the lobbies of our hotels expecting to meet with Carnival reps to obtain our flight information. The reps were there but informed us that they had no flight info. Finally at 2pm, my husband and I and some of the others were told we had a flight out at 5:20. Once we got to the airport it was just more confusion! My husband and I weren't on the manifest but everyone else in our group was. We stood at the ticket counter for 2hrs while trying to fix the problem with Carnival. Finally we got our ticket and we left San Juan with half of our group at 7:30pm. The other half of the group stayed behind because they were told they didn't have room on the flight, yet the flight left with over 100 seats available!!!!
I will never travel with Carnival again! The administration staff was so unprofessional and the lack of organization was unacceptable to all of us who paid good money to have them service us! They did not do their best to help us out when we needed it and left most of us feeling abandoned!!!!
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Students
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Epinions.com ID:
rjski
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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