Carnival Sucks

by Extreme John on April 2, 2008 2,512 views

I have come to the conclusion that I love to vacation, I love to travel and I especially love to travel to the carribean. OnÂ this trip I have come to another conclusion as well, CARNIVAL SUCKS. If you haveÂ read my recent posts about this vacation you will see some of the reasons as to why I have come to this conclusion.

It seems that each day that goes by there’s either someone else I meet that is not happy with the cruise or there’s something that comes up that sucks. I can be a pain in the ass when it comes to the level of service I expect to get when im either on vacation or doing whatever, I expect to enforce that same level of service in my own Tanning Salon business as well. Based on the feedback of others on the cruise that I have ran into it at least let’s me know that I am not the only one who expects to be treated with some level of respect and courtousy. Which brings me to my most recent “service” related issues with Carnival Cruise Lines.

After a long day on the Lido Deck of Carnival Inspiration yesterday, I decided I would head to the Casino, this was at around 4pm (ship time). On the daily itinerary of events it states that the Casino slot machine’s open at 9am and the table games open at 11am. I pack up all of my stuff that I took to the Lido Deck with me (laptop, cell phone, ipod, beer, sunglasses, camera) and head down to the room to drop everything off and grab my chips from the safe. Than it’s back to the elevator (which is something that ALWAYS takes forever) and hit the casino. When I get to the Casino they only have 1/2 of the craps table open with everyone jammed into playing on one side of the table. To a Craps player that is probably the most annoying thing ever, especially when your playing on a 16′ table and you have to be shoved in like cattle to play.

Here is where a a thumbs up comes in for the Pit Boss working the table yesterday, she knows I like to gamble and when I do I gamble for a long time and I play with some serious amounts on the table. So when she saw me she said, “You can play any time you want John.” I thought that was really cool and it worked out well because I was playing with another guest I met on the ship and he also didnt like be slammed into a small area like cattle. I jumped on the chance and played for a while, I needed some food so I left for a few minutes (I grabbed a snack right down the hall) I was seriously gone for 10 minutes. I also told them I would be returning when I cashed out.

When I returned to the Casino, the craps table was closed. No staff anywhere to be found. Now I had to head back to the room to drop off all my shit in the safe again and find something else to do. Mind you I dont lay out (and it was too late to anyway) and I had a late dinner time 8:30pm.

I have been on many Carnival Cruises before and I can tell you this is not a rare occassion, it is more like the norm. If Carnival is not going to run their table games the right way and they insist on relying on the slot machines as the basis of their casino than why bother having table games if your not going to staff them properly and make them available for your guests when you say your going to. From a business stand point I would love to know how much money Carnival loses accross the board on their various ships because they don’t staff their Casino in order to support having tables open when they are suppose to be. Knowing how much people gamble I can imagine it would be in the $100′s of millions of dollar’s range. Surely alot more money would be generated by staffing the Casino than would be by not having the tables open.

I have another situation I will be writing about either later today or tomorrow, and I have also decided to start a website called “Carnival Blows.com” where I will set a message board in place for previous happy and unhappy Carnival Cruise line guests as well as a a section containing links to other sites and forums that have feedback in regards to their Carnival Cruise experience. I did a little looking today and there are plenty of people who think that Carnival Sucks. After this cruise which is my 8th or 9th with Carnival, it’s safe to say I don’t think I will be returning to Carnival unless it’s another last minute decision, great value or not, it’s just not worth it.