4 Night Catalina & Baja Mexico (Los Angeles Roundtrip)
Sail date: June 02, 2019
Ship:
Carnival Imagination
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: U5
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
I truly wish I had chosen something other than taking a Carnival Cruise I feel like it was nothing like it was advertised. Even after I got off the boat I found that they have a hold on my card for almost twice what I owe them and I could not do anything about it for five days so we ended up having to cut our vacation short and come home. Both my birthday and first cruise experience were horrible thanks to Carnival.
Embarkation
2 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
1 out of 5
Horrible. I ordered a steak medium well and received it burnt and dry. The next day ordered a Southwest chicken wrap and spent that night and the next day sick. I thought it was sea sickness at first but I was fine the rest of the trip and I spoke with others who had the same problem. The morning of my birthday it took over 40 min to get a bowel of cereal and cold toast. Lunch I ordered a chicken and shrimp burrito. The man fixing my burrito starts piling beef and pico on my burrito when I tried to correct him he just looked at me and starts throwing chicken and shrimp on top of everything else. At this point I'd had enough. I complained to management who assured me they would address the issue and told me to not worry about dinner order what I wanted and they would take care of it and promised I'd have the best birthday meal ever. That evening the kitchen manager came by to assure me order what I want on them promised me my best meal. And I must say the lobster and steak that night was good not my best but good. As for taking care of me order what I want .. They turned around and still charged us $40 so I then spent several min at the help desk arguing about a bill I'd been led to believe I would not have.
Onboard Activities
1 out of 5
Twenty min of activities that were more of a waste of time than anything. Went to a Harry Potter trivia. The guy hosting was funny but the whole thing was him reading a few questions while we wrote the answers down he then read the answers off asked who got the most gave them some beads or some kind of bs, it definitely wasn't a real prize then we were done. Twenty minutes of nothing. My fiance said the game show was the exact same way. The hot tub was never hot when we asked for them to turn the heat up some they said it was not to go over 95 degrees and would not budget even though it was chilly the whole trip. Don't even think about getting into the two not on the Serenity deck as they stayed packed with children. Tried going to the gym the first morning. That was a joke went early about six to try to beat the crowd, negative the small room was packed needless to say I avoided that the rest of the time. It's almost like these things were added as an after thought. Almost everything on this boat is aimed at getting you to spend more money period. Your hassled almost as much as you are at Port in a foreign country.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
Attended the comedy show twice to see Percy Crews 2 the man is funny and very entertaining and to me one of the best parts of the whole trip. If it had not been for him I may not have smiled at all on my birthday. The night club onboard played great music but shit down at 2 am on the last night non of us liked that.
Children's Programs
We did not bring our children on this trip wanted to see how it was first.
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
I'm torn on this rating because there are a lot of great people working on this boat that work extremely hard. But because of the service received by the kitchen staff I have to give them only three stars. If I was rating the kitchen itself I'd give them only one star.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
For the most part the ship seemed to be pretty "picked up" but I did notice I never witnessed anyone cleaning the rails or door handles but yet hundreds of children and adults walking around touching them everyday all day.
Cabin / Stateroom
3 out of 5
The room was perfectly clean. The guy IMAN who cleaned our room was great. I'd gotten sick missed finding the trashcan in the darkness. I felt bad but he reassured me no problem deals with messes all the time and when I returned you could hardly tell. He was funny kind and a hard worker ready to meet any need I might have. By the third night it was easy to tell our bed was two cots pushed together which nether of us liked.
Loved it. Once again chose not to do an excursion instead we walked to streets visited the shops and talked with the people. We enjoyed some of the best tacos ever here once I was finally able to keep something down again. Great salsa as well I'm looking forward to visiting other parts of Mexico now as well.
Imagination is fun and inexpensive, but yes lacking in some areas compared to longer cruises, so don’t think all Carnival cruises compare, the 6 & 7 night ones we’ve done have been much better!
They will put a hold on your card for a set amount upon embarkation. Usually $100-200 for a 3-4 day cruise. At debarkation, they charge what you owe. If you are using a debit card, this will be a different charge than the first one. That is why they suggest not using a debit card.
Another Fake Review or expectations were too high. If You get something you don’t like or is not prepared properly in the dining room, you should always send it back or ask for something else.
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