Carabbean Celebration Cruise Not a cruise ship but a floating motel Ft Lauderdale, Florida

This is not a true cruise, it is a floating motel.  This is a scam, you are paying for a floating motel, with 3 restaurants and a small above ground pool.   I wish someone warned me before hand, so that is what I am doing. 

First I bought something online that forwarded me to this free vacation package I "won".  I was offered a 2 night cruise to the Bahamas and was told all I needed to do was spread the word to friends, no problem.  First salesmen offered the cruise, then transfered me to someone else who tried to strong arm me into paying $700 for a longer trip, after 15 minutes of being harrassed and saying no was transfered to another person to finalized my trip and offered me 3 days in Ft. Lauderdale and 3 days in Vegas for $100 which I took.  So far so good.

I paid the port fee $118 and $100, and at the time thought I had a good deal.  I've been on a cruise before and thought I was geatting the deal of a lifetime, till I got the e-mail with my info.  Reading through it I found out I had to take a vacation tour in Florida actually which is really a time share pitch.  I decided to do a little more checking something I should have done first.  I found the ship online with a video which you have to pay close attention to because it is very deceiving. 

Remember this is not Royal Caribbean but Caribbean CruiseFirst the ship is very small, as you watch you notice they take no wide shots.  The deck is small, the above ground pool is tiny.  The video only talks about the food, 3 restaurants which is really 2, the third is more of a food court.  The casino which is small, a night club, a pub and a sports bar.  The kids have an empty play room and a water slide on deck.  The only other thing to do is go to the spa which you have to pay a lot of money.  There is nothing else to do, no games. no activities. nothing.

I then called the company to complain I was not told about the Ft Lauderdale time share tour.  The rep stated It was not a time share but a "vacation tour".  When I informed him I was not told about the tour he then stated that was why I was the cheap price, the $100 hotel.  I told him did not want the tour but kept insisting, so I said I wanted to cancel.  He then transfered me to some else putting me on hold for 10 minutes, while on hold I called my bank to inform them of the charge and that I was canceling the charge with the company. They noted that the charge and cancellation was within the 3 day requirement and would assist in removal if the company did not refund the fees.

The next rep gave me the run around for 40 minutes.  I kept saying I had up to three days and wanted to cancel, he kept giving me double talk staing that in my state I accually had no cancellation option.  As you can imagine my level of frustration escalated. I informed him that was not correct and that by law all contracts have a minimum 3 day cancellation policy.  Not till I told him I would contact the New York Times and TV news as well as informing him my bank was already contacted and they would investigate for fraud that he finally agreed to a refund, which I received a confirmation e-mail.

I was lucky but if I investigated a little more I could have avoided the headaches.   I did more checking and found more complaints and lawsuits, people who paid a lot more and got stuck taking a vacation from hell.  We've all heard "if it's too good to be true it probably is" but still hope there is an exception.  Sorry there is not!.  I now this is a long report but I wanted everyone to understand what I went through and hope it is helpful.  Thank you for your time and hope you have a great vacation.