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I’ve cruised Norwegian’s larger ships and fell in love. The Sun was much smaller than what I was use to but found that they expertly handled all passengers with. There was a more personal feel than on a larger ship which I really appreciated. I thought the cafe would be over crowded since it is contained in such a small area, but I never had to wait long to get food or find a seat. I would defiantly cruise this ship again.

This was my second time taking the Carnival Liberty Cruise out of Miami, FL. The first time was 15 Dec 2012. This year the cruise customer service on the cruise was less than acceptable. This trip started off bad with my flight to Ft Lauderdale being cancelled the night before by the airlines for me and four others in my party. The cancelling of the flight had nothing to do with the cruise line, but the experience after is why I have a bad taste in my mouth.

 

 In order for me to make the cruise i took a fight into Orlando, rented a car and drove the four hours from Orlando to Miami to the pier to meet the ship before it departed.  We had prepurchased aiport transportation from the Ft Lauderdale Airport to the port in Miami through the Carnival.com website.  When asked about the possibility of either a refund or a credit for the unused portion of the transportation, I was told that the fee was nonrefundable and I was just out of the money.  No consiideration was entertained about the circumstances as to why, it was a flat there is nothing that can be done. 

 

The reps don't take the time to listen to your questions, they gave you the standard answers whether it went with the question or not. The express service which is a program the ship has in conjunction with certain airlines to transfer your luggage from the ship directly to your flight for a fee of $20. The program itself is awesome, the problem is with the cruise line who charges the baggage fees, etc to your sail &sign account. Southwest Airlines doesn't not charge you baggage fees for your first two bags, but AirTran does. Southwest and AirTran have merged. All travel purchased under Southwest is has the no fee for bags policy even if the actual flight is being operated by AirTran.  It wouldn't have been bad if when I got to the airport and could have been reimbursed for the $60 fee I was being charged, but the cruise line charged you ahead of time and there was no way to be reimbursed because it was them fronting the fees for you ahead of time. When I explained the merge between the two airlines and that my baggage was free they were not willing to look into it or take the fee off of my account. I was told because it was an AirTran flight I had to pay the baggage fee to participate in the program or cancel out of the program.

 

Considering all the fees associated with cruises to feel like you are being taken advantage of leaves a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to certain fees and the courtesy of customer service. To lose $312 because of Carnival's policy is not fair in my opinion especially when most people are on a budget. I have to say being a Gold VEIP member shows that I enjoy Carnival cruises, this particular cruise just didn't do it for me this time.

First let me say I love the Carnival franchise however I was very disappointed with the Carvival Vista. We had almost a 5000 people on our ship to include the ship personnel. Normally during the. Check in process your photo is taken and you are given your room keys. On this cruise your photo was only taken if you didn't have a passport otherwise the photo from your passport was used.  Your room cards (sail & sign) were not given to you, they were in an envelope outside of your cabin for anyone walking by to take.  The major problem I had with this is my credit card information was attached to that card. Anyone who arrived on the ship before my slotted time could have used my card to charge anything on the ship and would have not been the wiser until it was too late. The pictures and video they show of the Vista being built is not the same Vista I was on.  The balcony rooms were smaller than the other Carnival ships I've been on, The cabin was smaller than the other Carnival ships, The closet space was much smaller so much so that the life jackets are now located under the bed which means no place to store your luggage. The space between the desk and the bed was so tight you had to slide through sideways to get to the other bed.  The dining room Reflections is located on the same level as the Promanade deck, a high traffic area with a bar in the center with two staircases on each side, customer service, shore excursions the Christmas tree and at least 5 different photographers taking pictures.  Made it very difficult to make it to/from the dinning area for dinner ever night. After 11pm the only food you could get was pizza. Trying to stand in line with close to 5000 on a ship makes for a long wait for pizza.  The Guy's Smokehouse was only open the days we were out to sea so out of the seven day cruise it was only open three times (maybe). They fish & chip place that is free on the other ships charges for their food on the Vista. The food selection was okay on the Lido deck which was disappointing compared to my other Carnival cruises. There were only two ice cream machines that was always missing something i.e., spoons, cups, cones and always messy due to the number of children on this cruise. There were 1400 children on this cruise, most of them pre-teens or teenagers who caused havoc and mayhem. A group of them ran around the ship all night hanging from the of the ceiling in the hallways until they couldn't hold on anymore and just drop. All in the group taking turns. This went on for several nights around 3am. Don't know where security was, but i know where they weren't!  Now don't get me wrong I was not pleased with the above, but the staff that worked with me were very nice, accommodating and helpful.  The cruise director Matt is awesome! He definitely kept everyone pumped up during the cruise.  I don't think the Vista staff was ready for the number of people that came on this cruise. Not enough staff to keep up with the demand of the masses. This was not worth the extra money i put out for this ship. For entertainment if you didn't stand in line at least 30 minutes before you were not getting in to that venue. Everything about this ship although larger in size was smaller in space to accommodate more people. So in essence I paid more for less. Next year I will not be choosing the Vista at least not at the current price!