teachermichelle

This is my second time cruising with Carnival. We had been planning this cruise for several months. We flew into Houston from Idaho Falls, Idaho. We had made arrangements for a shuttle to take us to the port early Saturday morning. We got to the port and received a message that our cruise was delayed due to fog in the Galveston area. Sadly, this message came after we had left our hotel in Houston. We sat and waited at the port for hours that day, getting ambiguous text messages from Carnival telling us they'll get back to us in a couple of hours. Now I understand that weather related issues are out of their control. However, we had purchased the $70 Faster to the Fun pass and were told we would be boarding by 10:00-10:30. Our first message didn't come until around 8:00 am. The ship wasn't even at port at that point and they knew we would NOT be boarding the ship by 10:00am. There was very poor communication. Finally about 4:00 that afternoon, after receiving delay messages every two hours, they called off the ship sail for the day. At that point finding a hotel (ended up at a nasty motel 6) was nearly impossible. Anyway, long story short, we ended up with the other 3000 people loading the ship at about 11:00 the next morning. So much for FTTF. When we asked for a refund, we were told no.

Our cabin was great. We stayed on the 11th Spa Deck and had a balcony. It was nice. Our steward was a bit of a ghost and didn't ever talk to us. Because of the switch from the Liberty to the Valor our dining got messed up. The matre de', Joseph was very nice to help get us back with our group of 18. This was after standing in the line for him for over an hour. Our MDR experience lacked quality customer service. Our orders were messed up. Every night, several of our menu items were forgotten. For example, we would order two appetizers and only received one. Sides were given to the wrong people, etc. 

The ship was beautiful. Sitting on the serenity deck for hours on ship day was delightful. The piano bar lacked actually singing ability, but his piano skills were extraordinary. We really enjoyed the 80's show in the Ivanhoe theater on the last night there. 

Highlights:

*Guy's burger joint

*Dive in movies

*Room Service chocolate cake

*Serenity Bar

Carnival has stated that guests will  will receive a one-day pro-rated refund of their cruise fare, to be processed in approximately three weeks. I would definitely have cancelled had we not flown in to town. I don't feel like Carnival did much to make the most of a bad situation.