Carnival Breeze Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Our first time on a \"larger\" ship and the Carnival Breeze did NOT disappoint! We never knew how many people were on board, and it never felt overcrowded. This is such a fun ship! We booked a suite to celebrate our anniversary, midship and close to everything! Being a suite guest, we were given priority boarding with the Gold & Platinum guests and those who had FTTF. We were told it was time to board, were walked out of our holding room up into the general waiting area where we were hearded like cattle. We were separated from the group, the guests in the general area would not let us through, and it was unreal how people acted. Carnival HAS to get this corrected ASAP! Miami to Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman and Cozumel, back to Miami and did not disappoint! On our sea day heading back to Miami, the captain advised us of a medical emergency onboard. We headed towards Key West and a Coast Guard cutter met the ship, offloaded the guest and we continued on. The captain & crew always kept us informed and we hope the guest is doing well. Overall, a wonderful cruise and we are already looking to book our next vacations!

The Captain left the port of Grand Cayman early because he said the winds and surf was too rough to use the tenders. It was a beautiful day and he could have waited till we were scheduled to leave. This was after he detoured us form original schedule to get to Cozumel because a passenger as sick (which is totally understandable), but it rained all day and we left early. We spent most of our time on the ship. A CRUISE TO NOWHERE! The real reason was he wanted to beat the weather back to Miami (a storm was a day behind us) and get us to spend money in the casino and buy drinks on board. All they gave us was $19 port charges back. Nice compensation for not taking care of his passengers interests.  I will never use Carnival again. THEY LIED TO US AND RUINED OUR VACATION!

Let me start with saying that I never write any reviews and I am not picky. In case if something really goes wrong I call customer service and usually all the problems are getting resolved. Any decent company that sucsessfuly functions in this country will do everything not to loose a customer. By the end of the Western Caribbean  cruise people were promised, I am sure carnival lost a lot of current and potential clients. I understand that some things go out of control because of the weather and other natural causes. But the good smart management and putting customers’ satisfaction above financial gain would bring any business more success. Apparently Carnival is too cheap to pay to qualified specialists or just prefers to be dishonest and unfair to it’s guests on board. English is my second language, so please keep in mind when you read this. I only did this review to warn people about how their vacation can be spoiled by trusting it to Carnival. 

 

My cruise almost started on the wrong ship. I was travelling with my mom and one other person. We got our keys at the airport after spending 1 hour in the line. Then we took a cab to the port. Interesting fact - the taxi from airport to port is $25. the Carnival shuttle is $16 per person and after waiting in line to check in, you would have to sit and wait even longer for a shuttle. No comments here, I simply don’t get it. So we took a cab, because it made more sense to us. We arrived to the port early. There were two cruise ships Breeze and Conquest. We just wanted to get rid of our carry on bags and walk to the bayside mall in Miami. Workers at the port were not helpful at all. I felt like a ship in the herd. We ended up going through all the checking points but the last one, to find out that we have to go outside to get rid of our baggage. So we walked outside where we started. We found the crew that was grabbing and throwing bags in a cart. one of the men offered to take our bags and demanded(!) a tip. I gave him a few bucks, but was kind of irritated by the way he acted so i watched for a minute. Nobody else tipped. At that time I was in a great mood and didn’t care about that little incident at all. I was exited and happy about the coming cruise and the islands.

When we came back to the port hours later, we had to go through all the checking points again. At the last checking point right before you step on the board of the vessel, they checked our keys, the keys were not working. The guy started to issue new key cards to us, when I asked if we were on the right ship. He started to laugh at me and then looked at the keys and yelled “Oh S**t! F**k! how did you get here this is not Breeze, this is Conquest!" (wow! really?!) I didn’t even care about him cursing at that point, he started to run away and was calling us to run after him.We came to some office, where they told us, that our bags could go on the wrong ship. We were asked many times how our bags looked like, in spite of the fact that they had tags with our info and stateroom number attached. It was so confusing and unprofessional, I don’t even want to get into all the details.They also asked us about how the building and the hall looked like when we arrived the first time and dropped our bags. My mother’s blood pressure was so high, she had to take medication. We were checked 2 times and nobody paid any attention if we were going to the right ship. Also when they scanned my purse second time after we came back they asked me if i had a knife there. I said, I didn’t, and they let me go. wow! that is a security!

Anyway, after all the craziness, we finally got to the right ship, and found our bags safely delivered to the right place, as I thought, they would. I tried to explain it to people in the office to avoid the panic. Instead of calming us down they scared us that our bags could get lost. they could just call someone on the wrong ship first, but instead they were sending them emails. that was just stupid! I was still happy when it was all over and was very excited to be there. The cruise ship was beautiful, new and clean - that was a big plus. The food was ok, barely any seafood in the buffet. the same breakfast every day. The restaurant offered great menu, but it was taking forever to get your food. Our headwaiter was so slow. The only helpful person was his assistant/food runner. It seemed like he did all the work.

The next day after embarkation we arrived at Key West. And it was nice, although it didn’t really have the best beaches, but the weather was great and we were just walking around the island, sightseeing. We left laying under the sun and swimming with beautiful fishes to other places we supposed to visit.

The day after  the KW supposed to be ‘’fun day at sea”, I thought it was our luck, because it was raining  and we planned nothing but exploring the vessel. Around 12:30 we found out that someone on the ship got sick and we all need to rush him to Cozumel. at that point I was getting a bit upset, because when we arrived at Cozumel 2 hours after the announcement, we saw how cloudy it was, and it was raining most of the times. It was irritating because we shouldn’t even be there yet. And we wouldn’t if they could arrange a helicopter pick up for a sick person. so Cozumel was ruined for all of us. We got there late around 2:30pm and it was raining, all the fun places were closed, except for the mall. Even then I wasn’t loosing my hope. We supposed to be at Cayman Island in a day, and the weather is always good on cayman islands, at least that is what i heard from people on board. 

According to new itinerary we supposed to have another “fun day at sea” the day after we left Cozumel, but someone else got sick, so captain decided to rush us to the Grand Cayman. we got three at 1 am at night. The next day I woke up and saw the beautiful sunshine, the weather was perfect. No rain, finally! I was ready to spend all day at the beach. However at @10am they told us that it was too windy for boats to get to the ship in order to take us to the island, so we have to cancel it and go back to Miami. 

I was so upset, I almost cried. I decided to go to the lobby and demand some reasonable explanation. because I honestly didn’t notice any strong wind. if boats can not handle a little wind, the captain should always have  plan B or back up island, or something. 

The lobby was filled with furious people. The guest services crew was useless. people were screaming “Refund! Refund!” Some guests were asking at least a free drink, others would be ok with a free wifi or on board credits. However nobody got anything! Nothing at all. People’s vacation was ruined and the company didn't do anything to make people happy. There were over 4000 people on board from all over the world. A lot of the guests didn’t speak good English. One poor woman in the lobby was trying to talk to some customer service representative  in spanish. All she got as an answer was ‘’I don’t speak spanish, sorry”. My spanish is not good at all, but i could understand that she was just trying to find out what was going on. I demanded from that crew member to find someone who could announce everything in spanish. And - Surprise!- a minute later, they found someone who could speak spanish. 

People kept demanding refund, and the crew started to refund gratuity as partial refund without explaining that they were taking that money from poor room cleaners, bussers and servers. That means not just that they don’t care about their clients, but also that they couldn’t care less about people that worked for them. Or maybe the gratuity they collect doesn’t even go to the person that makes your bed and cleans your toilet for a week?… shameful company, full of empty promises.

This is what we were promised: 

1 Miami

2 Key West 8am-4pm

3 Fun day at Sea

4 Cayman Island 8am-4pm

5 Cozumel 10am-6pm

6 Fun day at Sea

7 Miami

 

This is what we got:

1 Miami

2 Key West 8am-4pm

3 Cozumel 2:30 pm-11pm was raining , we arrived to late to do anything fun.

4 not so Fun day at Sea, cloudy, rainy

5 Day at sea, arguing with customer service; cloudy sky after we left Grand Cayman waters, raining most of the times.

6 Day at Sea, no extra fun, cloudy, rainy. 

7 Miami

 

 

 I personally think we all got only about 30% of what we paid for. I am a business owner myself and if for some reason i can not perform what i was paid for, I don’t charge. Because customer doesn’t care why i couldn’t do it. Than is what I call an honest business!

I called their 1-800 number and tried to explain the whole situation, saying that I could pay 3 times less for going to Key West, after all it was the only place we visited and enjoyed as we supposed to. The lady was silent most of the time and then she told me she put a note about my complain, but they not gonna do anything in order to fix it. 

 Don’t let Carnival ruin your vacation! Stay away from their cruise ships!

This was our first carnival ship we ever took. We had always used RCCL. The breeze didn’t disappoint! I actually got engaged on the ship...during formal night, we were taking pics and I showed the photographer the ring and he got a lot of pics of me proposing! It was perfect. We met a lot of nice people, had so much fun!

HAD a wonderful time  the ship is amazing. Very clean and comfortable   My cabin Stuart Curtis was the best.  I went solo this time on vacation.  And the only complaint was 2 nights at the dining room Saffire  I was seated all by myself.  Need to speak up solo cruises if you want to sit with people.  Also the 2 pools were just to hot to enjoy.  Other than that loved every minute would go back 

Took 8 day cruise to Aruba from Miami 2015! Matt and Orlando was amazing the whole crew just made this trip so much fun and non eventful! Aruba was so beautiful recommend everyone should go there. People were so laid back and carefree.

Had an awesome time on the Breeze, definitely had a lot to do. As always the crew was awesome, can not think of a cruise yet that we didn’t have an awesome crew. The food was great, way better than home 😁, ‘Chocolate Lava Cake’ ☝️☝️🙀☝️☝️ just awesome. Cabin was excellent and always clean...🛳 is the way to Travel!!

Awesome ship! Staff was amazing, so friendly and helpful. The ship was clean and very well taken care of, the food was really good too. Definitely would recommend and we would go on this ship again.

We loved our stateroom. Our room had a balcony and the views we spectacular. 

We loved the ship's cruise director. Weeeeee Jimmaaaaay!  He made us feel like special guests. 

I can say that was the attititude of all the staff on board. Although we were not able to go port at Grand Cayman, because a guest needed hospital care, the cruise was still fantastic. This was because of the captain and his staff. 

 

Well organized

I really love the Dream. It’s been a few years since we since we sailed on her but I still have very fond memories of the Dream. It’s a beautiful ship. Our CD was Matt and his team was excellent. He was fun, engaging and very approachable.

Wow great ship and fantastic time, service top notch, no complaints on good either. Great cruise ship and balcony suite amazing. Matt was our cruise director but now he’s on vista, and Matt was fabulous!

Loved it our Steward was fantastic.  The locals at  St Marten were relentless trying to sell you things or giving you massages, braids, etc.  They did not know how to take NO for answer.  They were very rude.  The ocean was wonderful.

Pools were too small! Ship was absolutely marvelous in stability, cleanliness & room service by crew & Marley was fantastic. Dinners were excellent! Crew members were excellent! Stage shows & effects were top notch! Matt was funny as hell! Ship was extremely stable even with 50 mph cross wind! Stays at each island were too short, but the ship made up for it! Shuttle service provided at Grand Caymen was horrible, smelly & took way to long to embark & disembark! BINGO WAS A TOTAL RIP OFF & ABOUT AS ENTERTAINING AS THE TITANIC & LESS REWARDING! REALLY FEEL WE GOT RIPPED OFF BY THE BINGO! REALLY THE LOW POINT OF THE CRUISE!

I did not take the cruise, and you should know this. Besides the insurance that you offer I t is a real pain. I am going trough a health difficult time with my wife and the insurance wants Me to send them proof of everything. I can't imagine someone that could like to spend $1.300 just for the fun, never enjoy what he paid for and end up just asking for the money back. Unbelievable.

The outlay of the ship makes it easy to get around and find exactly where you want to be easily.

Too loud in the dining room,too many smoke areas

The ship was beautiful, the food was delicious, the entertainment was fun and Aruba was especially beautiful!

First time cruiser.

Would I cruise again?  Yes, but not with Carnival!

 

What I would have done differently.

checked on the baby siting program with the cruise.  What the agent mentioned on the phone and what I experienced on the cruise were two different things.  There was NO babysitting service. The agent on the phone said that I could hire a babysitter on the cruise that would look after my baby.  However the cruise only offered night time service starting at 10pm.  So I had to take my baby with me everywhere and I mean everywhere!  Taking a baby to the formal dinner was difficult.  My baby is 17 months old and has a hard time sitting down for 90 minutes.  Other cruisers were not impressed with my baby.  I had to leave my dinner, so I wouldn’t disturb others. There was a lot for food selection on this cruise, but by day three I was bored.  I was happy to get off the ship and eat the local food. The two pools were too small for the number of people on board. The splash pad was amazing.  The kids loved it and spent hours in the splash pad.  The alcoholic drinks were weak and bartenders did not know how to make certain drinks The ladies working at kids camp with my kids were caring and loved working with the kids.  Melissa and Jenny were amazing.  Kids camp had different activities so the kids were not bored and enjoyed spending a few hours a day at camp. Mitch our cruise director was extremely funny and engaged with everyone on board.  He got everyone to dance on the pool deck, entertained during game night and liked doing what he did. The nightly comedians at LimeLight lounge were very funny.  I would definetly recommend checking it out.

My steward was very attentive.  He knew all our names and was on top of making sure my kids got their towel puppets and chocolates every night.  Our rooms were cleaned twice a day.  Now that was amazing service.

 

I spoke to other cruisers that have gone on cruisers with other ships.  They recommend I check out Royal Caribbean and Disney.  I did look at Disney cruise lines, but the costs during the summer was not affordable at this time.  I have decided that I would take a Disney cruise during the school year.

 

For first time cruisers my advice would be to try a shorter cruise.  It's cheaper.

 

Overall the staff on-board were nice. 

 

The reason for 3 starts - our room was a dissappointment.  Not what I expected, from what the agent told me on the phone.  The price I paid compared to the cabin next door was 40% higher...so look out for last minute deals.    The food was boring. 

 

I won't travel with Carnival again.  After talking to others, I will check out other cruise lines.

nice ship, but night time shows and comedy shows are little bit disappointed. Except for embark day, waiting outside the heat without shade, others days are all good.