There were SO many things wrong with this cruise that I dont even know where to start!!!

My best friend and I decided to go on this short cruise for her birthday. We paid over $1200 for this cruise, so it wasnt like we got a great deal or anything. We could have went with another cruise line for less but the dates just werent right. She has been on 21 cruises and has been on some with Carnival and she never had a problem but it just wasnt her favorite so she stopped using them. She decided to give them another shot this time. BIG MISTAKE.

We got into our room - it was an ocean view - and the first thing we noticed was that the window was FILTHY. You couldnt even see out of it! What a waste of money! Next, the room was freezing and we couldnt find a thermostat. Finally, we looked up and saw it was on the ceiling! You had to stand on the bed, table, or trash can to turn this severely outdated AC unit down. AWFUL and very unsafe. After that we went to our muster station to do the safety drills. What a JOKE that was!!! There was no way they got an accurate head count and our section didnt even get escorted to life boats. It also took 45 minutes! Ive never been on a cruise where it took longer than 20 and they actually checked off your name and room number to make sure you were there and did everything properly. Carnival definitely needs to train their staff better because if an actual emergency occurred, they probably wouldnt have the slightest idea what to do. Once we were finally dismissed, we went back to our room and saw our stateroom attendant. He never introduced himself, said hi, anything.. We asked him to take our bed apart. He told us that he would do it the next day. We thought that it wasnt an unreasonable request as its his job but just said ok because we didnt want any issues. The bed was not good. It did not feel like a king bed like it feels on other cruises when they have the twins together. This one felt like it had two different sizes mattresses and they were splitting apart even though they had a big sheet on them connecting them. I would roll over and worry about falling in the gap. It was ridiculous. THEN we noticed the noise. We never did find out what was above our room on deck 8 because all the deck plan showed was galley - no through access - but there was CONSTANT noise that sounded like banging or construction of some sort. I have no idea what it was. But we would hear things at all hours of the night. It was very hard to get any sleep. The ship itself was noisy and rocky. There were no stabilizers and I found myself feeling nauseous the first night. I went to Guest Services to get some sea sick pills as I somehow managed to forget mine and was told they were $4 for 4 pills. Most cruise lines these are complimentary! They do not want you getting sick on their ship. Not Carnival!! I could see if they gave you one or two then charged you, but right off the bat! The second day was not much better. We were in Nassau - nothing special. Get back on ship and entering our room I smelled an odor. I am always smelling things no one else smells (guess strong sense of smell?) so my friend didnt smell it. It was by the door and you dont really stand there or anything so once I was in the room I didnt smell it. Didnt think anything of it since she didnt smell it. Well that day was her birthday as well. I had previously asked someone at Guest Services what I could do aside from decorating the room and ordering a big cake since it was just the two of us. He said that he could put a note in so that when we went to dinner that night, they would bring out a personal cake for her. I said that would be perfect. Well dont you know we went to dinner and they never did it. I didnt mention this to her at the time because she was already not happy with everything else that had been going on such as asking for wine glasses twice and not receiving them. We finally took two water glasses off a cart. We even tried to take our water glasses out of the dining room the first night to have glasses and they stopped us! On Royal you can take glasses from anywhere to anywhere on the ship. They dont care. Carnival apparently does. We went back to the room and went to bed and planned to stay in our room for most of our day at sea as we were so irritated by this point. The morning of our third day - our day at sea - i smelled the odor again that i had smell on the first and second day. My friend put our breakfast tray out and she too also smelled it. She happened to look down behind the door and saw a stain. It was VOMIT!!!! Apparently the previous people decided to drink too much or whatever but someone got sick right in front of the door in the corner and it was not cleaned up properly. So what we were smelling was vomit!!!! We notified our stateroom attendant right away who by now was not our favorite person anyway, and he argued with us that it was not vomit and that it was a smell coming from the air conditioner. I told him that it did not smell like a leaky AC, it wasnt musty or mildew, it was sour! Theres a big difference. He would not listen to us. He had his assistant come in (who was actually very nice) and sprinkle something on the carpet and vacuum it up but that just made the smell 10 times worse and throughout the room! We had had enough by then and went to guest services and explained what was going on along with everything else that was wrong with this cruise. The guy there called the Housekeeping Supervisor and she showed up and said that the stateroom attendant had called her and she told him that he was correct, it was from the AC problem they were having in the hallway that was causing another odor but once she was actually in our room she said she was incorrect because she smelled it and it wasnt the AC. We were right. She called someone to come steam clean that part of the carpet. We then had to leave a blower in our room. So our last day, our day at sea, that we just wanted to relax was ruined because we had a blower in our room and couldnt even talk to each other because it was so loud. Then it was removed in the evening before the spot was even dry anyway! And the smell was AWFUL. Then someone else came around 9pm, a Housekeeping Manager I believe, and asked if we wanted it steam cleaned again. We said no, that it was late and they had already ruined our last day on the ship. She apologized for the inconvenience but that was about it. That night we tried to sleep and instead of banging noises above us it was music thumping until about 3am! The next day we woke up to a letter apologizing and offering us 15% off another 2 or 3 day cruise. Are they crazy?? Do they really think we would give them any more of our money after spending over $1200 on a 3 day cruise (an expensive price as it is) that was awful?? and ruining my best friends birthday?? And only a 3 day cruise? So it would be the same ship! NO THANK YOU!!!!! We may have considered it if it was for a longer cruise and we found a good deal or something, then MAYBE we would give Carnival another shot. But even if we did that it would not be a very, very long time. At this point I honestly dont see myself ever going on a Carnival ship again. Read more