CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES - Bob Dickinson - WHAT A CON GROUP THIS IS! WHAT A CON GROUP THIS IS! THE FUN SHIPS YOU ARE NOT! RIPOFF Miami Florida

I took my family of five on a cruise in May of 2005. The Carnival Victory was not what I had expected. This was my 4th cruise with Carnival and my last. The ship was a wreck. There were screw holes above the headboard, the tiles in the bathroom and as you enter the elevator on my 8th floor were free to come off the floor. There was mold on the shower, the windows on our verandah deck were covered with a scummy salty grime and we were actually stopped from cleaning it. I was told that they would do it once we got into our first port of call. The lighting outside on the verandah did not work. There was what looked like a rum and coke or something of a dark drink spilled on the carpet and it was never cleaned up for the entire 7 day voyage. One of the servers dropped a full glass of champagne on my 7 year old daughter. The entertainment was mediocre at best. The room stewart dropped a tray of glasses outside my cabin after 2 hours of waiting for them to complete picking up the jagged glass and vacuum up the small particles of glass, I had to redo it so my 1 year old son would not cut his hands, should he have stumbled in the hallway.

And then there was the welding and grinding crew. We were in port and it rained really hard. I am getting ahead of myself. First of all we skipped our first port of call because there was a "propulsion problem" and we were compensated with a whopping $25. I paid $4500 for my families Deluxe Family Cabin and got back a whopping $125 for 1 of 3 ports missed. Thats their idea of compensation. Then at the second port of call, it rained. Not Carnival's fault, granted. We returned to the ship and went up for lunch. After lunch, the sun was beaming and we decided to go and lounge and get some rays. We found a nice area around the rusted pool(pics of all this will follow) and we were trying to relax and have a little fun in our rusty pool, when all of a sudden, 2 guys come out with a welding screen, a grinder and a mig or tig welder. They went directly to the north west of us, approximately 12 or 14 feet away and set up the screen. They placed it between the bar and the stairs and then without any warning they started grinding and welding on the staircase. Sparks are literally flying passed us and into the pool. Now this is really dangerous, as one of my family could have received a shred of metal in the eye or inhale it and then there was the fact we could have received a flash from the welder.

THIS ENTIRE CRUISE WAS A NIGHTMARE, I WOULD NOT BELIEVE IT IF I HAD NOT LIVED IT. BUT I WILL FOLLOW UP THIS REPORT WITH PICS TO SHOW YOU HOW BAD IT WAS. THERE WAS ALSO A LOT OF RUST ALL OVER THE OUTSIDE OF THE SHIP. I had talked with a gentleman on the cruise and he told me this was his 20th cruise overall. However, it was his FIRST & LAST with Carnival Cruise Lines.

UPON MY RETURN I CALLED MR. DICKINSON AND THE LADY WHO INFORMED ME SHE WAS THE TOP PERSON TO TALK TO, OFFERED AND ADDITIONAL, AND GET THIS, $200 TOWARDS MY NEXT CRUISE WITH CARNIVAL. CARNIVAL ALSO OWNS AND OPERATES A NUMBER OF OTHER CRUISE LINES. MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I MADE.

THIS YEAR MY FAMILY TOOK A DISNEY CRUISE, AND LET ME TELL YOU, IT WAS AWESOME. FIREWORKS OFF THE BACK OF THE SHIP, MICKEY SAILING ACROSS FROM ONE STACK TO ANOTHER, CASTAWAY CAY IS BREATH-TAKING, MY FAMILY AND I HAD A FABULOUS TIME.

Please adhere to this warning about Carnival and spend the extra money to go on Disney, you won't be sorry.

Shawn
St. John's
Canada

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