For the most part, disappointing
Carnival Victory Cruise Review to U.S. - Southeast
Contributor Level:
Deck Hand
Cruises: 1 cruise (first)
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 0
Sail date: June 01, 2006
Ship: Carnival Victory
Cabin type: Inside
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 14 years ago
Review summary
This was my husband and my first cruise. My parents cruise a lot, but have only cruised on Royal Caribbean and Princess, never on Carnival. So our expectations of the overall cruise experience, food, service, etc. were pretty high due to their experiences. Boy were we wrong. If we didn't know better, (that other cruiselines provide such a different and more upscale experience than Carnival) we would never consider cruising as a vacation - EVER AGAIN. It's a sad sad statement for Carnival. Our cruise started with LINES. Imagine the longest Disney World lines times 100. Since this was only a 2 night cruise, Carnival decided to save a buck and forego the porters, and have everyone on the fully-booked ship carry on all of their bags. It didn't matter if you were on crutches, in a wheelchair, used a cane, whatever - you carried your own bags on. Not only did you carry your bags on, but you lugged them through the line for hours. If you were lucky, all of your luggage was on wheels. Many people weren't that lucky. The biggest problem with no checked luggage is that all 2000+ passengers and all of their luggage must be screened. Can you imagine 2000+ people in a security line at an airport? Now you've got the idea, but it was worse because at least in a security line at the airport, people only have their carry-ons! So, three hours later, and close to the scheduled sail time, we finally were in our room unpacking our bags. The line to get on the ship was still just as long as when we were in it, though. The ship was more than 2 hours late leaving port. There were more than a few unhappy people with just enough time to dump their bags in their rooms and grab their life vests for the lifeboat drill. Remember, this is only a 2 night cruise, so every minute the boat is late pushing off is time deducted from the gambling and shopping time that doesn't start until the boat is out into international waters. It's not like they will extend the arrival time on return. That's 2 hours OFF of our cruise time, two hours less of that particular evening's activities as well.Pros: The Asian rock band - they were good!
Cons: The food, the service, the lack of activities - basically everything
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