Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Liberty Cruise Review
Western Caribbean

Emily Gregg
Age: 24
Occupation: Auditor
Number of Cruises: 2
Sailing Date: January 15th, 2006

To Whom It May Concern:

I just returned from sailing on your ship, The Liberty. Overall, I was not impressed with the trip and would like to explain to you the disappointments I had.

#1 – The odor in the hallways. Each day a different section of the hallway would have a very strong odor of raw sewage. This smell was literally nauseating and unavoidable. There really didn’t appear to be a way around it, no matter which path we took to our stateroom each day, we encountered this horrid smell.

#2 – The room steward. I have previously sailed with Carnival and was under the impression that the steward was to introduce themselves and become familiar with their guests. By the end of the trip, I never knew who our room steward was. The only interaction we had was the several times that some type of staff walked into our room while we were in there. They would knock slightly and then just enter without waiting for an answer.

#3 – Hot & Cool Club accident. One evening while in this bar a woman was cut on her foot. There was a very large amount of blood covering a large area of the floor as she walked out of the club to get help. This appeared to be a huge health hazard, yet the club was left open and the cleanup did not appear to be sufficient, especially since many of the guests were dancing barefoot on the same floor that had been covered in her blood.

#4 – The boat movement. As I mentioned before, I had sailed with Carnival previously and barely noticed boat movement. This trip, I can’t recall a time when I couldn’t feel the boat moving dramatically. It felt like we came into contact with something more than once. Our cabin was terrible, always shaking heavily and rolling quite a bit. Motion sickness, which has never been a problem for me, was a constant struggle. We avoided our room constantly and couldn’t do much other than sleep there without getting sick. We visited other rooms and did not have the same experience there.

#5 – Bar service. My experience was that the bartenders in various areas of the ship were not interested in the least in providing quick service. They all know that they are entitled to a gratuity automatically, and so it often took 5-10 minutes just to be acknowledged and place an order, even if the bartender was available to prepare drinks.

#6 – Ports of call. I understand that weather is something no one can control, but having to cut our land time short as well as cancelling a port was horribly disappointing. The situation with Costa Maya was really the end of my patience. Within an hour of leaving the ship we were told to get back on. It seems that this situation could have been anticipated a bit, even if earlier that morning as the ship had such a hard time docking. All of the passengers I spoke with were dreading getting back on the ship. The only bright side we could see was that maybe we’d get back to Ft. Lauderdale sooner and be able to get off the ship. The $25 credit offered was an insult to my senses. I have heard of similar situations in which guests were given a replacement cruise as an apology for the experience. Because of my previously positive experience with Carnival, I would be willing to give it another try if this were offered. I hope to replace the memory of this past trip with something more positive.

#7 – Our safe would not work. I placed two calls for service and no one arrived to fix it.

#8 – Wireless internet. I purchased 100 minutes of internet time as I had very important work to be done while on the trip. The internet was horribly slow when it did work, I found it very unreliable. I called the purser who gave me the extension of the manager. I placed several calls with no response. About halfway through the cruise, the internet stopped working entirely. I called the pursers office again and was given the extension and was told that it was down, but would hopefully be up the following day. The internet usage was never restored. I lost at least $1000 because of the internet not being accessible during the trip. I was not offered a refund for the severe inconvenience. I have disputed the internet charge on my credit card and am expecting a refund.

#9 – Gratuity. I arranged to have the automatic gratuity removed from my account prior to disembarking. Upon my final statement, the gratuity was still in place. I have also disputed this charge with my credit card company and look forward to the refund.
 

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