This was our first and last experience with Carnival Cruise Lines. We've taken many cruises before, and have always traveled Norwegian. Perhaps Norwegian spoiled us, but we had certain expectations when we boarded the Carnival Fantasy. We were originally to depart from New Orleans but our departing city changed due to an oil spill in the Mississippi. We traveled into New Orleans anyway so that we could see the city. Carnival provided motorcoach transportation from New Orleans to Mobile on the morning of the cruise. The first, and what ended up being the constant, issue was the complete lack of communication on Carnival's part. We checked into our hotel, which was recommended by Carnival, and we were never informed what time the busses were leaving New Orleans to transport us to the Mobile cruise terminal. We found the information out by coming into the lobby at the right time. Apparently the LAST bus was leaving New Orleans at 10am and we happened to come into the lobby at 9:30am and realized there were busses outside loading passengers on that had also found out in the same way we did. At that point, we had to quickly gather our things, check out and board the bus. Had we not walked into the lobby when we did, we would have had to get a taxi to drive us the 2-1/2 hours to Mobile. We found the experience completely disorganized and without proper communication up to this point. We should have seen the warning signs already! We rented a suite on the ship at a cost of over $5,000.00. We were sent, in the mail, VIP wrist bands that we were told to wear at all times. We were told to enter the VIP check in area at the cruise terminal for priority check in once we arrived. We entered the terminal, saw the VIP check in area and proceeded to wait in a very long and slow line. We made sure to ask a Carnival representative first if we were standing in the right line, to which he responded yes. After waiting for over 45 minutes, another Carnival representative came over and told everyone that we were in the wrong line and that we needed to stand in another line. A little aggravated, we moved to the new line, where we proceeded to stand for another 20 minutes, when another Carnival Representative came over and told us that we were in the wrong line again. She informed us at this time "there are no VIP's, everyone is a VIP today". Eventually, we had to enter and wait in the line that all other passengers were waiting in. This was fine with us, but it would have been nice to know this from the beginning so that we would not have wasted time standing in two lines prior wasting a lot of time and aggravation. This was now the second warning that this cruiseline is completely disorganized and really had no idea what they were doing. Three different people telling us three different things. Once we were onboard we were able to immediately access our room. I guess so much time had gone by in the terminal they had plenty of time to get our room ready. With Norwegian, a suite is truly a suite. Large and spacious, a balcony roomy enough for lounge chairs and tables, and comes with complimentary soda, water, and yes, even alcohol. It also comes with a concierge who happily handles your shore excursions and generally makes sure you are happy. The room steward delivers breakfast to you every morning, for no extra charge. On Carnival, it is quite different. The room was small and cramped. There was no room concierge and nothing was complimentary. We had soda and water in our room and we were charged for them if we opened them. You would think after spending over $5,000.00 on your room they could at least give you a soda. The balcony that was attached to our "suite" was so small that the two of us could not sit outside at the same time. My husband is 6'4" and he could not sit comfortably in the chair without his legs having to hang over the side. We were unfortunate to cruise when hurricane Gustav was coming to New Orleans. Carnival kept us out at sea for 2 additional days and acted like they were doing us a favor "giving" us 2 extra days for free. They communicated VERY LITTLE to us during this time. It was not until the passengers started getting very nasty did they finally tell us that we were stranded at sea. We had to change our flight 4 times because Carnival would not keep us informed as to when we would be able to go back into port. They could have easily taken us into Florida and allowed us to fly home from there, but that would mean we left the ship and stopped spending money at the bar. Never once did they offer free drinks, even one drink, or free phone calls so we could at least notify our families or call the airlines to change our flights. We were left to use our "cellular at sea" minutes at a rate of God knows how much.

We were eventually assured we would be back into port on Wednesday morning at 7am. We woke up at 6:30am, looked outside, and we were still at sea. We did not get any message from the vessel as to why we had not ported or when we might port until well after 10am. In the end, we did not get back into port until 5:45pm that evening.

All in all it was a miserable experience. It taught us never to travel during hurricane season, never to visit New Orleans and most importantly to NEVER travel Carnival. Carnival Cruiseline is the Walmart of cruiselines.