I have always wanted to go on a cruise so when my best friend from high school called me and asked if I wanted to go with his family I said heck yeah! I missed out on the previous years cruise they took, so I made sure I was on this one! He is in the military and had flown in from California to East Tennessee with his wife and 9 month old son. We headed out from East Tennessee to Mobile Al. with the whole family talking about how awesome the cruise experience was. I was excited about my first cruise and getting to spend some time with my friend and his family who I had not seen in a while. The ship was scheduled to leave out at 4:00pm so we wanted to make sure to get there a little early. We arrived in Mobile at 11:00am with plenty of time to spare. As we approached the parking garage there was a lady giving out a piece of paper telling us " We apologise about the delay but the ship would be in shortly". The paper informed us to drive to the Mobile Civic Center (about 4 blocks away) to check in. Once we arrived to the Civic Center there were about 2,000 people running around as expected with VERY LITTLE ORGANIZATION. It was 40 degrees and raining, not the best conditions. We completed the check in process and Carnival's staff informed us there was a 2 hour delay. I thought well this stinks but they can't control the weather! To put it short the 2 hour delay became a 10 HOUR DELAY! We finally made it on the ship around 2AM! Everyone was exhausted and ready for bed. I got up the next morning ready for a much needed fresh start. I opened my suit case to lay out some clothes and noticed some items from inside my suit case fell out on the bed. Confused by this I closed the top part and noticed a 8 inch hole in the side of my suit case! I began to look at the clothing inside and noticed a brown colored stain on several items. As I wondered how this happened I remembered seeing the luggage being loaded with forklifts and had determined that was where the damage had came from. SOMEONE HAD RAN A FORK FROM A FORKLIFT THROUGH MY LUGGAGE!!!!!!!! I called Guest Services and they told me to bring the luggage down to their office so they could look at it. I spoke to a rep at Guest Services who had a bit of an attitude problem. She told me there was nothing she could do other than write a letter stating I would have to get an expert in luggage repair for consideration for a refund and I would have to call Carnivals main office and take the issue up with them. Once I got back home I called Carnival and they told me to fax an estimate of the amount of the repair and if the luggage could not be repaired they would reimburse me the amount of the damaged items. I faxed the quote form a local company that said the luggage could not be repaired and should be replaced. I have yet to even hear back from Carnival about the issue. So far I am out about $250.00 in the cost of my luggage and clothes that were damaged from this "vacation". I would have to say I would not recommend Carnival! As several previous reviews have stated Carnival DOES NOT ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR DAMAGES OR ACTIONS! We missed out on the stop in Progresso due to the delay and were refunded $20.00. The reason Carnival gave us for the delay was weather. Later we found out the port was closed due to a nuclear powered military ship. (My friend called and confirmed this with a guy he knew who had recently got stationed in Mobile. Carnival knew the port was going to be closed 2 weeks prior to our sail date and tried to lie and cover it up saying it was due to weather issues and fog. I know this was not the case because there was no fog in the area, it was not raining hard and the winds were about 5 mph. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND CARNIVAL AND I WILL NEVER GO ON ANOTHER CARNIVAL CRUISE!