Frustrating Experience on Carnival 7 day Western Caribbean Cruise
by BarryDC
1. They lost my scuba diving knife and told me that they are not responsible for items lost or stolen. I explained that they are the ones who lost it, however, they said I signed an agreement removing any responsibility for Carnival
2. I had my Cozumel excursion cancelled due to hurricane Michael and that is obviously not the fault of Carnival. However, my next excursion was to see the Xunatunich Mayan ruins in Belize. My daughter and I left the Carnival boat and boarded the water shuttle on 10/10/18 and was dropped off at the Belize city port. The group going to the Xunatunich ruins gathered in a building to take the bus to the ruins and when the bus pulled up and we were about ready to board the bus, the guide said that we would not be going to the Xunatunich ruins. The guide explained that you have to take a ferry across a river to get to the ruins and due to the rains from several days before, the river was too dangerous for the ferry to cross. As a result, we were told that the bus was travelling to the Cahel Pech ruins instead. The tour guide said that the Cahel Pech ruins were just as good as Xunatunich and there was no reason to be upset. A few people had already been to Cahel Pech in the group and they were very upset and told the tour guide that they were not telling the truth because there was a big difference between Xunatunich and Cahel Pech.
Since I did not have time to transition to another excursion, my daughter and I went ahead and took the two hour trip each way on the bus to see the Cahel Pech ruins. The Cahel Pech ruins were not to be compared to the much larger Xunatunich ruins. My complaint is that Carnival should have been made aware of this change of plans and communicated that to the people on this excursion so we could have decided whether or not to select another excursion. I chose this excursion specifically with the Xunatunich ruins in mind and would not have chosen to see the Cahel Pech ruins. So I spent the whole day seeing ruins I did not want to see but didn’t have the necessary information in time to make changes.
3. My next excursion was to be a two tank dive in Roatan on 10/11/18 with my daughter. On the evening of 10/10/18 we received a pink notice at our door indicating that the excursion had been cancelled due to insufficient numbers of divers. Now I was really getting frustrated because my first excursion in Cozumel had been cancelled due to Hurricane Michael, my second excursion had been changed without any prior notice and now my third excursion had been cancelled.
I expressed my concern with the Shore Excursion staff and finally received some useful communication from the Excursion manager Goran. Goran sent an email to someone in Roatan to try and find a local dive shop that could take us on a dive. Goran called me that night and said that the dive shops had closed at 4:00 pm and he did not have any information to give me but to check back at the Excursion desk first thing in the morning of 10/11/18. In the morning, I received my usual no service from Joseef at the excursion desk and he told me that he would take care of me if I just met him at the meeting point on Roatan. After leaving the ship an hour later, I found Joseef and asked what the arrangements were and he walked over to Joel with Anthony’s Key Resort (the company who I had made arrangements with through the ship for a two tank dive before it was cancelled due to lack of participants) and he said he was talking to a lady who was over the taxis to see if she could find a dive shop and to check back with him in 5 minutes. Not expecting to get much help, I instructed my daughter to take out her phone and to turn it on and accept the international charges in an effort to find a dive shop that could take us that morning. We found a dive shop on our own. I did go back to Joel in 15 minutes and asked what he had found and he said that the lady in charge of taxis was unable to speak to anyone in a dive shop and so he instructed me to go and find this lady and try to work things out with her. So I did not receive any help from Anthony’s Key Resort, Joseef with Carnival or the lady over the taxis. I paid $60 for a round trip taxi to the west side and paid $120 (including Tip) for one dive for me and my daughter at ECO dive shop. The Eco Dive shop personnel were wonderful and I would recommend them to anybody.
I believe that the Shore Excursion people should have communicated this cancellation to me prior to the evening before the excursion so I could have made other arrangements. And they could have been more helpful in finding a dive shop that could accommodate us.
4. I am happy to say that one excursion, the two dive excursion in Grand Cayman went off as planned. So one of 4 excursions was a success.
5. I paid $110 for the premium internet and it was not reliable and very slow