After multiple attempts at contacting Carnival Cruise lines, through various channels (phone, email, and facebook) I have finally decided to post a negative review over our most recent experience. I have been cruising with Carnival since the mid 90's, and without fail, every time I return to Carnival they are now charging for something that was once 'included' in your booking price. It started when you began charging for soft drinks, then it was the steakhouse experience, then it was opening more private restaurants (sushi on our most recent cruise) that cost extra. Then, with our recent Alaskan cruise aboard the Carnival Legend, you are now charging for room service! We are not talking about steak and wine either, you are charging for a pizza, which anyone can walk up stairs and get for free any time of day. You are charging for chicken wings, sandwiches, etc.

We paid several thousand dollars for our family (two cabins) for this vacation, and at every turn Carnival seems to be looking for a way to get more money out of us. What happened to the cruise being an all inclusive experience? The worst example of this price gouging or nickle and diming your customers occurred when we attend tea time on board the ship on a sea day. We were told that it was an extra $1.99 for an 'herbal' tea. I was blown away that Carnival will literally take any chance they can to get more money out of their customers. The term All Inclusive used to carry real meaning, but it certainly does not anymore, at least not where Carnival is concerned.

On top of these concerns, we had planned this entire cruise around one goal - my family wanted to see bears in the wild. We exhaustively researched your shore excursions and finally decided our best chance was the Taku lodge seaplane experience in Juneau. As you will see we booked this excursion several months in advance, we hurried off the ship to meet our pickup time only to be told that the excursion was canceled due to weather concerns. Now, I know that Carnival cannot control the weather, and that the excursion was canceled for safety concerns, I totally understand and appreciate that. What I do not appreciate is that there was zero communication from anyone at Carnival at any time. We were off the ship and told with 5 minutes notice that our excursion was canceled. My children were literally crying - and then we were told there were no other excursions we could attend that day as the ones that were able to operate were either full or had already begun. This left us with several hours in Juneau to do nothing but explore the stores, which all sell pretty much the same thing - I am sure you know this since Carnival owns most of the stores in these ports. You can see everything in about an hour. Our next port, Ketchikan was only a 4 hour stop - not enough time to really do much of anything so we felt like 2 out of our 3 ports in Alaska were mostly a waste. Read more