Carnival Spirit Review
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The Carnival Spirit cured of us any desire to consider Carnival for another cruise. We will never sail Carnival again. The embarkation was horrible. We were sailing in a suite, giving us "priority embarkation." There was nothing priority in our 1-1/2 hour wait in numerous lines -- you would just get done with one line and there would be another hidden around the corner. We had several issues with the cabin itself (although the cabin, itself, was good). We pressed the button for Room Steward on the telephone, which was answered by Guest Services -- not the Cabin Steward. We left messages several times. We never saw the Cabin Steward until after we had dinner that night, when she appeared to give us the "rules" and reprimanded us for calling Guest Services (not what we were trying to do). One of our complaints was the extreme noise generated by the exhaust fan in the dressing area. We named it our "747." The noise was enough that we could not listen to TV without turning the volume way up. Conversation was a challenge, especially for my husband who is hard of hearing. We were told that they couldn't do anything. Either it would be loud or the bathroom would stink. We suffered through this for several days, then decided to put a piece of paper (it would hold a book if you kept the pages together) over the vent. They were right. We soon noticed the smell of mold coming from the bathroom. We alternated between noise and stink for the rest of the cruise. We found the art in the room to be very offensive (close to child pornography).
The late sail away seems totally unnecessary. We had just sailed on a 28-day cruise in November. The ship (Princess) loaded everything and got underway on time (4:00 p.m.). All Carnival could keep saying was, "we have to load provisions for "15 DAYS.'" I don't know how many time we heard that refrain. They were still loading luggage at 10:00 that night. Very poorly organized or incompetent (you pick).
The staff in general didn't seem to give a damn. Our waiters in the dining room served our needs, but didn't put any personality into it. We could not find any Lido staff that seemed to enjoy their jobs, or even care about anything. The only staff member we could find that had a consistent smile on his face was the "ice cream man" on the pool deck in the afternoon. It was such a change that he was quite noticeable.
Cabin Review
Ocean Suite
The OS cabins on Carnival are spacious with adequate storage. Our biggest complaint was the extremely noisy exhaust fan in the dressing area (commonly referred to as our "747." Having a conversation in the room was difficult, at best, and the television had to be turned up quite load to hear it over the roar. The bed was adequate, as was the balcony. We like the double sinks in the bathroom. The dressing area is a little crowded -- you can't access the closet if someone else is in there (which we never were because of the excessive noise). We were offended by the art on the wall (close to child pornography) and in extremely poor taste!