Carnival Cruise Line Review

Carnival Cruise Line CEO – Jerry Cahill

So I’ve been cruising with Carnival Cruise Line since 1989, & while I couldn’t afford to take a cruise every year, when I did, I always ended up with Carnival because their pricing was a little less expensive.
It seemed that there was always a problem with Carnival from the maitre’ d cutting into my vacation by trying to get me to give his restaurant rave reviews when there were problems (I was young back then & he took an hour out of my time), to poor level of service in almost all aspects. Sorry, I don’t remember all the specifics stories, only that there were always problems, & that the last cruise I went on the lineup to the customer service desk for complaints was always VERY long & busy.

I even  had problems with the staff that works in the office building of Carnival. I don’t remember the exact details, but one of their employees tried to cause problems when I had my assistant at the time checking into pricing for me.  I had to eventually speak to her supervisor, but she lied to my assistant & tried to cause a rift between the two of us.

Carnival never seemed to care, & their way of rectifying that huge stressor was to give me 10% off my next cruise which I never cashed in because it was only good for one year.

Fast forward to July 2009, I had to go on vacation, I needed a break & hadn’t been on vacation since 2003 which is not healthy.

Since money was tight, I had no choice but to go back with Carnival, so I started to check out pricing.

Unknown to me, they automatically assign you a personal vacation planner (really a sales person) if you don’t book the cruise right away, so Jean Dumelfort & I played telephone tag a few times, but then finally connected. That’s when I found out the price for what I was quoted before had gone up, so I told him I need that same price that I was quoted last time even if I have to speak to a manager about it.

He said he would call me back, but never did.

I waited days & still no call, so I called & asked who his manager was. I left a message for Jean’s manager to call me back & guess what, STILL no return phone call.

At this point I was starting to get pissed. Didn’t Carnival care about me as a customer? I mean come on, what are the odds that 2 people wouldn’t return my phone calls. What kind of mickey mouse operation are they running there???

After waiting days, I finally tried to get Carnival’s Head Office number & I encountered attitude & resistance from another one of Carnival’s employees. After we had a power struggle, I finally hung up, called back, & got a very good (seems like one of the few good employees there) female employee who willingly gave me the number to the office of the president which is 1-800-438-6744 x 10809 just in case you need it too.

I then spoke to Susan who I assumed was the executive assistant to Jerry Cahill the CEO of Carnival Cruise Line. She didn’t seem to care that I didn’t want to sail with Carnival anymore, she was not only very passive about my entire experience, but pretty much said or implied that it was ok if I went elsewhere, or I got “what do you expect me to do?” LOL

That’s when I proceeded to give her a lesson in customer service (amazing that I have to do this when I don’t even work for Carnival Cruise Line). You should NEVER ever let a good customer go to your competition, not unless the customer was wrong & being nasty.

The only reason I continued to stay on the phone with her is because I needed to book this cruise, otherwise I would have tried to sail with Royal Caribbean.

Anyway, she left it with me that someone would call me back within 24 hours (that was a week ago) & of course what happened again??? NO BLOODY PHONE CALL FROM ANYONE AT CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE.

I’ve dealt with executive assistants at the President’s Office level from several other companies before, & usually they are top notch. They know how to calm down the customer, & I get a return phone call or a resolution that same day. Carnival is CLEARLY different in how they run their company. Very inept.

Anyway, I ended up booking the cruise with another travel agent & then today phoned the Office of the President to see what I was going to get now for ALL of these problems & wasted time I encountered. Can you imagine having to chase a company to take your money LOL, wow, just too much.

First Susan was on the phone, so Wanda (I hope I got the names right) took my name & number & I assumed that Susan was going to call me back as she knew the story, but noooo, I get a call from someone who I assumed was just a regular employee who books the vacations. Her name was Hyacinth.  I got very perturbed that she didn’t even know what was going on, I mean if you are going to pass the buck, at least tell the person who’s taking over the full story.

In the end she was nice, I guess it became clear to her that there were major problems.

She kept putting me on hold which was okay, but I had no idea her manager was listening in on the conversation the entire time.

I waited patiently & in the end her manager (Gladys) comes on the phone & tells me the ONLY thing they can do for me is give me a $25 on board credit. Supposedly Jerry Cahill was away today & couldn’t speak to me, but maybe I should have demanded that he call me back on Monday. I was just too exhausted by the entire mess.

It’s me & my son sailing, so it’s not just for me & I felt $25 was a joke. Especially with ALL the numerous problems I’ve had with Carnival in the past & they saved money because I never cashed in any of those discounts.

Gladys said they wouldn’t go any higher. They didn’t even offer me a better cabin which isn’t really what I wanted, but it’s something usually hotels do when there are major problems. Carnival’s way of apologizing was to throw pocket change at me. I mean come on, I’m paying close to $2,000 for this cruise & of course it’s costing me way more than that because we have to tip & we have to fly there, etc. Not their issue, I’m just saying it’s a lot of money & they screwed up BIG TIME.

So I’m writing this so next time if you are considering whom to sail with, you contemplate whether you should sail with Carnival Cruise Line or ANY of their other cruise lines since they recently bought out Norwegian Cruise Line.

I really really hope that next time I have the money to sail with a cruise line that actually gives good service & really cares about their customers.

Michelle